Haunted
by Woodswolf
Summary: Six months after the fiasco with the Beldam, Coraline and her family have to move to a new town in Massachusetts. Little does she know that trouble follows her wherever she goes...
1. Prologue

**HAUNTED**

_Prologue_

* * *

After the funeral, Wybie brought Coraline aside to talk to her for a little while.

At first it was just small talk - Coraline was politely avoiding the subject of his grandmother's sudden heart attack and death, to his relief. They chatted about simple things: their school's summer sports teams, how Slugzilla was doing, what Cat was up to these days.

Wybie also avoided a few of her more sensitive subjects as well - the mental scars Coraline had still had hadn't faded, even though that February's events (which apparently he had only seen a small part of) had happened almost six months before.

Eventually, however, he had only one thing left to ask.

"Well... C-Coraline?" he stuttered nervously. "I was wondering if... before Child Services comes to pick me up, c-could I stay over at your house... for a day or two?"

Coraline's slight smile faded, and she looked away from him and at the ground instead.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "We're moving again."

"Why?" he asked.

"The gardening catalog my parents were writing for closed up shop," Coraline said sadly. "We're moving to Massachusetts in a few days."

"Oh," he frowned.

She smiled slightly. "I'll ask if you can stay the night," she told him, before leaning in for a hug. He didn't resist her.

"See yah," Coraline smiled, and then she left to go find her parents.

That night, while staying over at Coraline's soon-to-be-empty apartment, Wybie dreamt of dark clouds and zombies lit by torchlight.

It was all too real until he woke up on the verge of screaming.

* * *

_(A/N): Yes, yes, yes! This is my second ParaNorman and Coraline crossover, since so many people were demanding I write another one XD_

_Anyway, this is going to be an AU of ParaNorman with Coraline and Wybie thrown in the mix. __**But **__- and I still have to decide whether or not to do this - there may or may not be a few extensions into the Coraline universe as well. Heh._

_Another thing: I can't decide whether I'm going to ship Wybie/Coraline or Norman/Coraline in this. Help me with a review, how about? ;D_


	2. One

**HAUNTED**

_One_

* * *

_one month later_

"Come on, you two!" Mel Jones scolded the two children in the back of the car. She looked in the rear-view mirror and eyed them. "It's a new school, a fresh start! What can _possibly_ go wrong?"

Coraline looked out the VW Beetle's window and stuck her tongue out. Wybie began to giggle, and soon the two of them were having the world's loudest laughing festival.

"What's so funny?" their 'mother' asked them. That only made the two children laugh harder.

Eventually, the laughter died down and they just sat together in the back, backpacks on their knees, and smiled at each other.

"I'm still getting used to the fact that you're my 'brother' now," Coraline whispered to Wybie. "It's just too weird," she grinned.

"Well, the only things I'm missing right now are Slugzilla, my motorbike, and Cat," Wybie whispered back to her. "My grandma was really strict."

When she heard him mention his grandma, she instantly became happier. It was the first time he had mentioned his grandmother to Coraline after her death and his sudden adoption by the Jones family.

"We never did say goodbye to Cat, did we?" she asked him in another whisper.

He shrugged. "I didn't see him around. He was probably hunting rats or something."

Coraline shivered slightly, but Wybie didn't notice.

"What are you two whispering about?" Mrs. Jones asked them. "Don't think I can't see you back there."

"School, Mom," Coraline lied. She and Wybie grinned. "Are we close?"

"I don't know," her mother sighed. "I've got the address, but... ah! There it is!"

Her mother parked the car a block away in a spot on the side of the road. She looked back at the two kids and started rooting around in a bag on the seat next to her. "Just give these papers to the school's secretary - I filled them out ahead of time. Off you go."

Mel Jones handed the small stack of papers to Coraline. Coraline and Wybie got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, and watched Mrs. Jones start the car and drive to the newspaper building where she and Mr. Jones would work writing the local events and sports columns.

"No turning back now, right, _Why-were-you-born?_" she teased.

"Don't get that started again, _Caroline_," Wybie teased back.

The two children laughed as they walked up to the school.

* * *

Coraline stood silently off to the side with Wybie. The area around the school was filled to the brim with cliques - in one section of the large mass of people were the nerds; another part confined the jocks; a third held the cheerleaders; in yet another the bullies dwelled. The misfits filtered in and out of the groups, chatting with one another.

And then, of course, there were Coraline and Wybie, standing on the edge of the crowd, not sure where to fit.

The chatter floated over the groups like the sky itself was made of random blubbering talk. A few people laughed; a bully gave a kid a wedgie; three people were texting each other on their cell phones. It was an ordinary school day.

That was when another student showed up, and the crowds split to make a path for him. Coraline couldn't tell if that was because he was a misfit or because he was 'royalty', but she had to look around heads to catch a glimpse of the boy.

He was about her height, with long brown hair that stuck straight up, the same color as his large eyebrows. He also had a pair of gigantic ears (much like her own, she realized suddenly, to a greater extent). The crowd parted for him like he had a gigantic forcefield around him preventing them from closing in on him.

And then the school bell rang, and in the madness that followed with all the kids pushing to get inside, the pariah she had seen was left picking up his books after someone undoubtedly tripped him.

Coraline walked over to the stranger, crouched down, and reached out to pick up one of his things.

"No, no, it's okay - I can get it myself," he said nervously. He avoided looking in her eyes for some strange reason.

"It's fine."

Coraline heard Wybie walk up behind her as she finished helping him pack his bag.

"We're new here," she told the boy. "I'm Coraline, and he's Wybie."

"I'm Norman," the boy said.

"Nice to meet you," Coraline smiled. "See yah round."

With that exchange, Coraline and her 'brother' walked inside to turn in their registration papers.

* * *

_(A/N): Hey! Told you I was going to be done with this chapter soon! :D_

_Anyway, there's a poll up on my profile right now concerning what ship to have in this: Wybie/Coraline or Norman/Coraline. Go out and VOTE! WOO!_


	3. Two

**HAUNTED**

_Two_

* * *

Norman wasn't an actor. He wasn't dramatic or attention-seeking; bold or loud. He was the quiet kid that went to a show, stood in the back row, and watched.

...Which was why he had been surprised when he had recieved a role in the school play.

"Bolder! _Louder!_"the drama teacher, Mrs. Henscher, shouted at him. The other kids giggled "More powerful! With gusto! My_ reputation _is on the line!"

"Yes, Mrs. Henscher..." he said, looking at the ground. The other kids laughed.

He repeated his line with slightly more volume, hoping to appease her, before the walls and floor suddenly began to burn and smolder away. He was spirited into a dark vision, far away from the gymnasium where his drama class continued.

* * *

He was in a forest. That much Norman was certain of.

The forest was dark; dimly lit from above. He couldn't tell the time of day, whether it was noon or sunset or sunrise or the middle of the night.

"Where are you...?" a voice asked darkly, murderously.

Norman risked a peek around the tree. There were two men, both holding torches, one holding an old-fashioned musket and the other a pitchfork.

One of whom was looking his way.

"There it is! We're going to get you!"

He turned and ran, tripping down the path. He had to get somewhere they couldn't go, like...

...up a tree. There, in a clearing, was a tree, with nice nooks he could stick his hands in to climb up. The men would be too big to get up, so he wouldn't have to worry about them any more until they found him...

He ran to the tree, sneaking his hands into the small spaces, pulling himself up the narrow trunk of the aging oak. Eventually he reached a branching space where he sat and tried to hide. He heard the men approaching from somewhere behind him.

"Nighty night, witch."

He turned around and looked below to see that the men had come up behind him while he wasn't looking. The one had now raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

In the last second before the vision abruptly shut down, Norman heard a whispery voice call his name.

_Do you fear now?_

_You _should_... Norman..._

And then the vision was gone.

* * *

"Norman?"

"_NORMAN!_"

"Aah!" he shouted, jumping back. The other kids laughed at him, and his teacher stared at him accusingly.

"Norman, I don't like you causing _classroom disturbances_," Mrs. Henscher said with venom in her voice. The bell rang loudly as she finished. "Class dismissed."

All of the others ran out immediately. Norman slowly walked out of the gym to his locker, to see another message for him to wipe off with a towel:

_See you tomorrow, __**FREAK!**_

* * *

_(A/N): Well, here it is! How do you like, people?_

_I have been having many interesting PM conversations recently with __**Nicktendo Squad**__, among others, concerning __**Haunted**__ and what I plan to do with it in the future._

_And here are anonymous review replies! :D_

_**Stasia: **__Now. Duh XD But it might be about a week and a half before the next few come out - it depends on whether I have internet and computer access while on vacation in Florida XP_

_By the way, everyone, __**Haunted **__is now my third-most reivewed story! HOORAY! :D Thanks to everyone who reviewed!_


	4. Three

**HAUNTED**

_Three_

* * *

That night, the school play came to a sudden end as chaos reigned over the stage.

"The tree told me!"

The Jones family only had come to begin to get integrated into the culture of Blithe Hollow. It was only luck that it turned out her new friend Norman had been in the play.

But all the same, as people laughed and shouted, Coraline couldn't help but feel a slight shiver run down her spine.

She stood up and moved through the crowd, not noticing Wybie watching her walk away. She navigated to one of the doors in the back of the gym and snuck out into the hallway. Coraline walked to the second set of doors near where Norman had been left kneeling on the floor.

She looked around the door (the second in the pair was open wide, to let cool air from the hallways into the packed gymnasium) and saw him being laughed at, kneeling on the floor, hanging his head in shame while wearing a ridiculous-looking pilgrim hat.

Coraline waited until he looked at her and then beckoned for him to follow her before fleeing down the hall.

Norman seemed to have caught on to her idea and was soon following her down the school's hallways. Coraline blindly wandered for a minute or so before walking into an unlocked classroom with him right behind her.

"Well, let's get this over with," she said when he walked in. "I don't know why, but I believe you."

Norman didn't respond immediately, and Coraline sat on a desk to try to hide the fact that she was shaking strangely.

"Why do you trust me?" he finally asked, kicking a foot out.

Coraline sighed. "Because I've been called crazy, too."

"By who?" Norman asked her, moving his gaze from the floor to her.

She sighed again. "Wybie."

"Your brother?"

"Adopted," she told him, explaining. "His grandma died a month ago, and no one took him in."

"Why did he call you crazy?" he asked her, his eyes curious.

"Because I -" she trailed off and sighed. "It's hard to explain... I don't want to talk about it. Even after he saw the _proof, _he still doesn't quite believe me."

"Well..." Norman said slowly. She looked at him. "I can see ghosts," he shrugged. "I can believe a lot."

She sighed, and looked away from him. She didn't say anything for a long time.

"At my old home," Coraline finally started, "there was this door. On the other side of the door was a 'perfect' world inhabited by a monster. The monster calls herself the other mother, and kills kids by sewing buttons in their eyes so that she can steal their souls. I barely escaped her with the souls of the dead kids and my parents."

There was silence.

"Coraline -" (_So he actually knows my name,_ she thought. _Impressive._) "- that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. What book did you read that out of?"

She frowned, sighed, and looked away again. "I knew you wouldn't believe me," she told Norman. "Imagine it - someone called crazy even by the 'crazies'."

Norman shook his head quickly. "No - I didn't mean -"

Coraline was already at the door. "I just wanted to tell you I believe you and don't know why. I don't know how we got started on this."

She left the room then, unaware that a sad boy was watching her every step with depressed eyes as she walked away down the hall.

* * *

Wybie approached her first when she came back.

"Jonesy -"

"I don't think you can call me that anymore, Wybie," Coraline laughed. "Technically, you're a 'Jonesy', too."

The two of them laughed. "You've been waiting for me to say that, haven't you?" he asked her.

"...Maybe."

He stuck his tongue out at her, and that earned him a hard punch on the arm. "Anyway, you owe me a soda because I stalled your parents for you."

"Our parents, Wybie."

"It's hard to get used to it," he chuckled. "And they thought you were in the bathroom 'cuz I told them you were. That's our story."

She punched him in the arm again and laughed. "Okay, Wyborne. I'll get you any kind you want tomorrow."

"I'm gonna try a root beer."

Coraline's eyes widened. "Wybie, you've never had a root beer before?"

"Well... no..."

"Wow, you're like, culturally deprived, Wybie."

The two children laughed, and that was how their parents found them half a minute later.

* * *

_(A/N): OMG. I was at __**Downtown Disney **__today, and they had the cutest __**Mickey-Mouse-head pin**__. Guess what the face and ears were made out of?_

_**BUTTONS.**_

_It is now my __**Coraline/Disney crossover pin **__XD_

_And tomorrow I'm going to the __**Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal**__, and I'm going to buy something __**Ravenclaw-themed **__and have a __**Butterbeer**__ XD_

_Also, I have started writing the fourth chapter for this, and I've finished the epilogue (the epilogue makes the ending bittersweet). Just thought you'd want to know.  
_

_Gunniht, peeps!_


	5. Four

**HAUNTED**

_Four_

* * *

The next morning, Wybie got his first root beer from a vending machine near the school.

When it came from the machine, Coraline grabbed it for him, opened it, and handed him the bottle. He took a sip.

"So good," he said, taking another, bigger gulp. She laughed.

"Come on, Wybie," Coraline giggled, walking to the school.

* * *

The two of them had different classes for the majority of the day.

His day, in general, went like this: it started with a unit quiz in History (which he groaned at, for it was on a unit he and Coraline had not been at the school to study; the teacher, however, failed to exempt him. History was his worst subject anyway, and he didn't think that the Jones family would care quite as much about his report cards).

Shortly after that, History ran into English, where the class had (thankfully) started a new unit on Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was a pain for him to digest all of the old English, but overall, he enjoyed the chapter the class took turns reading.

After that was Homeroom, and then Home Economics, and then lunch, which was the most fun 'class' he had in the morning.

After that was Science, and then Math, both of which he enjoyed, and during a second homeroom in the late afternoon, Wybie asked his teacher for a pass to his locker (his excuse was that he needed another pencil, but he just wanted to finish what was left of his root beer from the morning (_Who _cares_ if it's cold?_ he thought to himself. _That stuff's good!_). He would have to make sure to bring a pencil back with him afterwards).

It so happened, however, that the most direct route from Wybie's homeroom to his locker passed right by the bathrooms.

So, thus, he heard an explosion, a sound as if something large had flown across a room, glass shattering, and saw Norman run out of the bathroom very quickly.

The first thing he wondered was what kind of accident had happened in the bathroom. There was only one person to ask: Norman. Wybie followed behind where he had run to.

"Hey, Norman," Wybie said as he caught up to Norman. "What happened in the bathroom back there, anyway? I just saw you run out, and heard something going on in there...?"

Norman looked undecided for a moment, as if he was thinking about whether to tell him something. He looked nervous and strangely guilty. "Well, I do owe Coraline an apology," he said, sighing sadly. "To tell the truth, I was talking to my Uncle Penderghast. He told me something about how the town's curse is real and then exploded."

Wybie's mouth fell open. "You mean, like, blood and guts and _everything? _That's _nasty! _Did you get the janitor?"

"W-well..." Norman stammered nervously. "No. I don't need to get him - someone will tell him about the bathroom stall's door eventually."

"Then what do you mean?" Wybie pried. "What do you mean that he exploded if there's no guts everywhere?"

Norman shifted his eyes and sighed in frustration. "He - moved on. I don't know how to explain it, but it's just been so weird since my grandma died."

Wybie turned to look at Norman again. "Your grandma died, too?"

Norman nodded. "Late August."

"Same here," Wybie said. "But what happened after that?"

Norman sighed. Wybie could tell it was going to be a long explanation.

"I started talking to the ghosts after she died. I've been able to see them all my life. I began with my grandma, and then other people," he paused. "My uncle just moved on from being a ghost to whatever comes after that. He glowed gold and exploded, and that was it."

Wybie sighed. "This sounds like the kind of thing Jonesy would tell me. You're just as crazy as her," he said. "I've gotta get back to class."

Norman frowned and looked at the ground. "Well... see ya, then," he said, walking away.

Wybie returned to his study hall, his root beer long forgotten.

* * *

Wybie walked back into the room and sat at his desk. His homeroom teacher, Mrs. Aster, walked up to him and looked over his shoulder.

"So... no pencil. Would you care to tell me what you needed to get out of class for, Wyborne?"

* * *

_(A/N): Well, as you can see, there's a kind of trust-triangle going on here._

_**Coraline**__ trusts the both of them._

_**Norman**__ only really trusts Wybie._

_**Wybie**__ doesn't trust either of them._

_What I mean by 'trust' is belief in their stories, really. It's just harder to type 'belief in their stories' and any varying grammar things over and over XD_

_So, anyway, this is now going to be part of a chapter marathon that will be published on September 1st-4th (probably, unless if I want to do it all on the same day). BUT._

_This is now my most reviewed story. It has an average of over seven reviews PER CHAPTER._

_If you could, please kindly drop a pointless sentence or two (such as 'Good chapter. Imma go read now.') in the little review box doohickey so that I keep my review average up. I could bribe with publishing faster as a reward, you know XP_

_I typed this A/N on the 26th of August, during Tropical Storm Isaac, if anyone's curious :)_


	6. Five

**Haunted**

_Five_

* * *

Norman sat at his windowsill and looked outside at the sun, where it was still relatively high in the sky. His parents were out to dinner, leaving his sister, Courtney, home to watch him.

It wouldn't be hard for her. He was grounded, and supposed to stay in his room all night.

Norman thought about what his uncle had told him earlier. The whole thing sounded almost like the kind of thing parents would tell their children about the Bogeyman, or vampires, or the-things-that-go-bump-in-the-night. _Don't get out of bed, or the Bogeyman will come for you!_

Mr. Penderghast had only told him the kicker: _It's all real! Here's how to prevent it._

He didn't know what to think. He looked out the open window and wondered.

That was when a voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Hey, Norman?"

He looked down at the yard and spied a silhouette of a skinnny girl behind a sheet hanging from his family's clothesline. And as if he wouldn't recognize her, two locks of blue hair and a hazel-brown eye peeked out from behind it.

"Are your parents home? I just wanted to talk, but you told me you were grounded, and the TV is on downstairs," she said. The sheet briefly billowed in a light breeze.

"They went out to dinner," Norman told her. "My sister's supposed to watch me, but she's probably downstairs watching TV right now. What did you want to talk about?"

Coraline sighed as she walked from behind the sheet. "The town's curse is supposed to activate tonight, isn't it? If it's real, anyway."

Norman had a display of shock and confusion on his face. She had ripped the sentence out of his mind. "How did you find out?" he asked instead.

"I figured it out from what Wybie told me," she answered. "If there was more time, your uncle could have told you somewhere else, shown you what you needed to do. But he didn't, according to Wybie, anyway."

Norman nodded. "He said he left a book with his body that I'm supposed to read about near the Witch's grave at sunset. I guess, though, that if the curse activates and zombies come, my parents _might_ let me out of the house to stop it... Maybe..."

"I learned to be a bit cautious a few months ago," Coraline told him. "You might want to go read that book anyway. Just sneak out - it won't be that hard, if your sister's watching TV."

"Sure. But how did you find my house, anyway?" he asked her.

"You can find _anything_ in the phone book," she grinned mischeviously. "And you're only about three blocks from my house - I just walked. I have to get back, though - surely at _least _Wybie realizes that I'm not doing homework on the grass behind our house."

Norman laughed with her for a minute before she ran out of the side yard and out of his view. When Coraline came in view again further up the street, he waved to her, and she waved breifly to him before she started running again.

He realized that he had forgotten to apologize.

At least he could try to stop the curse before sunset.

* * *

_(A/N): Well, since I canned the A/N on the last one and don't plan to update it, I'll can this one too, and maybe the next one._

_Anyway, Haunted now has its own __**COVER ART! HOORAY! **_

_I loved doing this one - the sky took a long time to do (I kept messing with it for a few hours, actually - I think it looks good now, though), and the - ahem - pale thing at the top looks bad (I think I blurred it too much, or haven't smudged the edges out enough). You'll find out what it is later - just zoom your browser, and you might be able to see... something red... that might give you a hint._

_Ah. Got through that without spoilers._

_But those of you that have reviewed probably have some general idea of what it is. Those that asked questions, anyway, or had interesting comments that I wanted to resolve or expand on. I like making my readers theorize._

_So come on, do it. Drop a review. I dare you... and actually, I want you to XD_

_As I've stated, my ParaNorman is AU. I would not have been good with characterizing Neil, which was why I didn't include him here (I loved that scene, though - hockey mask...). As **Nintendo Squad** put it, he's 'too happy for me'. **Exact quote.**  
_

_But he will be included in the next chapter. I had to manipulate a few things for a moment so that I could leave Neil while Mitch could come (Alvin will also come on the zombie hunt). So, anyway. The end.  
_


	7. Six

**HAUNTED**

_Six_

* * *

Courtney was sitting on the couch in front of the TV, paiting her toenails a pretty shade of purple, when she heard the door slam. The noise made her flinch a bit, and she ended up painting her toes instead.

_Crap! How am I going to get this off?_ she thought. Then she yelled at her brother, assuming that he had been the one to slam the door.

"_NORMAN! That better not be you! You're grounded, and you heard Dad!_"

She was just a _bit _angry at whatever had slammed the door.

She waited ten minutes. During that time, she finished painting her nails (both toe- and fingernails), attempted to get the nail polish off her toes (there was still a spot of purple on her pinky toe when she gave up), and half-paid attention to the TV, while waiting for the front door to open again.

Nobody opened the door.

Courtney stormed up to Norman's room, and banged on the door. It creaked open on the first hit.

The first thing she noticed was that the window was open, with a bright orange sunset coming in through it.

The second thing was that the room was dark.

The third thing was that Norman wasn't there.

She sighed, not bothering to yell for him again. Courtney walked down the stairs and out her front door.

She tried to think of where she could go to look for him.

_Maybe the neighbors have seen him,_ she thought._ I think the fat kid that lives there is in Norman's class._

Courtney walked out the door and down to the sidewalk, walking over to the house next door. She knocked and stepped back, looking at the door, willing it to open.

When it did, she barely kept her composure. Standing before her was probably the hottest guy at her school (besides possibly the football team's quarterback). Mitch.

And there he was. _Shirtless_.

"Uhm..." she started nervously. "Well, I'm Courtney. I'm looking for my little brother, and I was wondering if you saw him?"

Courtney tried, desperately, to look into his eyes while she said that and not at his gorgeous chest, but his muscles were too big. She twirled her dyed blonde hair to distract him from where her gaze was.

Mitch stared at her for a few more seconds, as if his brain was trying to process her request. Then he turned around and called back into the house. "Neil? Do you know this girl's brother?"

From a room off to the side of the entrance hallway, a pleasant-looking fat child with red hair and an overdose of freckles emerged. She could tell he was around Norman's age There were a few crumbs of what could have been chips near the top of his shirt.

"Hi, Neil?" she asked him. The kid smiled. "Well, do you know where my brother, Norman, is?"

Neil thought for a little while, before he broke into a freckled smile. "I don't know where he is, but I've seen him hanging out at school with this blue-haired girl and her brother. Maybe they would know where he is. They're new this year - I think their last name is Jones?"

"Thank you," Courtney told Neil. He went back into the room to return to what he had been doing. She then turned to Mitch. "Well, my parents have the car right now... could you drive me over to go get him?"

For effect, she strut out her hips, put on her biggest pair of puppy-dog eyes, and twirled her hair cutely.

"Sure," Mitch told her in his same deep voice, nearly monotone. "I can drive you."

"Thanks," she said.

_Cute, but brainless,_ she thought. _His voice makes him sound even stupider._

He followed her outside and opened the garage door to reveal a large van. He slapped it affectionately a few times before he got inside and motioned for her to join him.

When she was in, Mitch backed out of the driveway and started down the street. After a while, Courtney pointed out a house that had a small moving van sitting in the driveway, and Mitch pulled over and parked next to the curb.

Courtney got out of the van and walked up to the door. She knocked and waited. She heard a yell inside the house, and the footsteps of someone approaching the door. A kid with a mop of dark brown curls opened the door.

"Hello..." she said. "Do you happen to know where my brother Norman is?"

The kid turned around. "Uh, Coraline," he said. "Eh, it's for you."

* * *

_(A/N): Hello everyone! I started working on this again today when I was having a brain fart for how to set up a death for Flint from __**Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs**__..._

_(I've wanted to kill him fo time. STOP JUDGING ME! _YOU'RE_ THE CHARACTER SERIAL KILLER, NOT ME!_

_...I'm not helping my case, am I?)_

_ANYWAY!_** THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU**_(Enough thank-you? XD) to __**Sweet Kagame Kiss **__and their community, __**David Abbot's Favorite Stories Collection**__, for adding __**Haunted**__ to its archive! ;D_

_ALSO: For those of you that __**thought a few details in Chapter Four were weird **__(It's labeled '5. Four' by FFN), __**those have been fixed now**__. __**I misunderstood a request by one of my readers to include details from the book**__, which I haven't read, and probably never will. So now that's over with, and __**you can go back to believing that Norman saw ghosts all his life **__(like I do, as well). :P_

_Another note: The people have spoken in the poll! __**Normaline**__ it is!_

_...I would have done it anyway.__** I **_**SO**_** WOULD HAVE.**_

_Also, during the part with Neil, I was going to add a ginger comment (thought by Courtney, of course), but thought that would have been too mean - especially since I'm a half-ginger (Brown with red highlights). Is it only my town that does ginger jokes? If so, thank god that you, people of earth, don't have to suffer them._


	8. Seven

**HAUNTED**

_Seven_

* * *

The ground cracked around the two boys, the taller of whom was holding a book.

Norman was the first one to notice the undead hand claw slowly out of the earth, pulling a body with it. And then Alvin saw it.

"Norman?" the bully asked him.

"Yeah?"

"What the fuck were you doing?"

Norman didn't quite know how to reply. "Uh... trying to stop this?"

Alvin jumped on the detail. "Well then wha-"

"Run first, ask questions later," Norman suggested.

The bully paused. "Works for me."

The two children ran from the clearing, just as the last of the zombies were being freed from their earthen prisons.

* * *

They ran through the secret path leading from the graves, straight towards the old house that now held the dead body of an uncle that he hardly knew.

"Into the house!" Norman called to Alvin. "Hurry!"

Norman ran up to the house with the bully-turned-ally following right on his heels. Alvin tore the door open, almost off its creaking hinges, and Norman ran in and slammed it behind the two of them.

He took out his cell phone and used its screen as a light to help them get to the far room. "Hide!" Norman whispered. He heard zombie feet sliding and limping up to the old house.

Norman crawled under a bed nearby (he was just skinny enough to get underneath, but he realized that this position would probably put him in the most danger, as he would have nowhere to escape to). He saw Alvin ducking behind a pile of books across the room from him right before the first few zombies burst into the room.

The room was still relatively bright, with a lone lightbulb on, dangling from the ceiling, that apparently had been on since his uncle died.

One of the zombies started waddling past his hiding place when its ear fell off. Norman tried not to breathe as an undead hand started to search the floor for its lost ear - which fell right in front of Norman under the bed.

He pushed the ear, barely, towards the edge of the bed, away from his face in general, while the zombie's fingers sought its lost flesh. When the hand found the ear, it left its spot from where it had been blindly exploring and instead brought up the flesh back wherever it wanted to put it.

That was when Alvin decided to scream his head off. Apparently a zombie had gotten too close to his hiding spot for his comfort, but the bully burst out of the pile of books he was hiding behind and started to run into the dark portion of the house.

Norman knew that if he didn't help Alvin, he would most likely get himself killed one way or another (hitting into a wall too hard, zombies eating his brains, or whatever other horrible deaths he could possibly have in a pitch-black decrepit mansion during a zombie apocalypse).

He crawled from beneath the bed and found Alvin on the way out (he had dropped his phone at some point on the way in, so he didn't have light) and they ran to the door, the zombies almost nipping at their heels.

Norman pulled open the door, only to slam it again after finding a zombie with teeth bared, ready to eat flesh. The teeth stuck in the door, and when he opened it again, the zombie was mounted to the door by its teeth.

Norman left the door open and the two of them fled down the hillside.

* * *

After about five minutes of running down the dirt road, they stumbled upon a pair of headlights driving up the road at a breakneck pace. Norman waved the van over and pulled open one of the doors, dragging Alvin up in next to him.

He found that the bully, even though he was obviously a bit tired, wasn't nearly as heavy as he expected him to be. When he piled into the van himself, he found a soft hand there to grab his own and help him into the van.

"Norman," the voice belonging to the hand said as it shut the door, "If you were going to go right away, you could have at least brought me along with you."

"Coraline!" he said. "How'd you find us?"

"Well," Wybie began, "Your sister Courtney drove up to our house asking where you were, and I brought Coraline to the front door..."

Norman could just imagine the scene:

_Courtney knocks on the door. A tall, gangly kid with a mop of brown hair answers it._

_"Do you know where my brother Norman is?" she would ask._

_The kid stays silent and leaves to bring back a girl, about his same height with straight blue hair. The one with the mop-like hair whispers a few things in her ear for a moment._

_Courtney asks the same question again, this time to the girl._

_"Uh... would you believe me if I told you that I sent him off to stop the town's curse?"_

_The kid with the blue hair laughs nervously. Courtney grabs both children by the wrist and half-drags them to the van, with only a few words of "Explain on the way."_

Norman almost laughed for a moment. Then he remembered that he had failed to deactivate the curse and now there were zombies running around, doing whatever they wanted to.

"...and then we saw you guys by the road, and pulled over."

"So did you prevent the curse?" Coraline asked.

Norman felt a wave of - what? Shame? Uselessness? - pass through him. "No," he admitted. "Alvin stopped me before I started. Come to think of it, do you still have the book, Alvin?"

"Yeah, I've got it," he told Norman from somewhere behind him. It was too dark in the van to see.

That was right about the time when the van hit a man.

* * *

_(A/N): So, some of you are doubtlessly wondering why I have left out something along the lines of an hour of ParaNorman's plot and drastically changed another half-hour or so. **Most of you think that this is just an AU of ParaNorman with Coraline and Wybie thrown in**, and that's why._

_Let me say this: It's not that._

_There are only two reasons that I'm including the AU ParaNorman plot:_

_One: it's fun to write, and_

_Two: I need some vital details from it that I have been sprinkling throughout._

_Thus, anything that is different from the movie is either my error ore there on purpose. The more drastic the difference, the more likely I intended it._

_(However, if people HAVE noticed differences from the movie - major or minor, and no, the absence of Neil DOESN'T COUNT - please tell me! I want this to be as accurate to the film as possible, and I'll tell you if I intended the error or not in a PM reply.)_

_I'll throw everyone a bone: the second half of the plot involves fear games, Normaline, and Cat. Because Cat is awesome._

_For those of you that are still hating on me for not including stuff (like Coraline's reaction at the end of the previous chapter, but which you saw an even funnier version of in Norman's imagination; or Neil in general): you're going to get a lot more extra awesome-sauce (What is the exact spelling for this epic term?) than if this was simply an AU ParaNorman fic._

_One of the things? The results of a character studies I have been doing concerning what our favorite trio's worst fears are. In drama form._

_So just wait. There's just three, four, maybe five chapters left of AU ParaNorman? And then we get the fun stuff... hehehe..._

* * *

_In other news, Haunted is now my most-hit, most-reviewed, most-favorited, most-subscribed story, and it's tied for first in terms of the number of communities it's in. Thus, in the stats that you people can effect, Haunted is at number one on everything._

_And for the other things (chapters and words), I am working to make sure that it wins in each aspect, specifically by drawing out the length of both plots so that there are more words and more chapters._

_Also, during the time when I was typing this chapter, Haunted passed 2,000 hits. Happy birthday._

_Also, SORRY THAT THIS IS SO LATE ON UPLOADING! Right before I was going to post it, my mother just HAD to search Facebook for pictures she probably never posted. :P  
_

_**PS: Oh, I'm such a stupid. This should have been T a while ago.**  
_


	9. Eight

**HAUNTED**

_Eight_

* * *

"Is he dead?" one of the kids asked. Mitch couldn't tell which one of them said it.

"Uh," he answered, picking up the now-unattached head. The head groaned, and its tongue flopped out of its mouth.

Mitch screamed and punted the head as far as it would go, barely noticing the body the head belonged to spasm just a bit. Once the foreign object was about eighty or ninety yards from him (it helped that he was the kicker on his school's football team), lost somewhere in the woods, he ran back to his van and hopped in the driver's door again before flooring it out of there.

"I'd say that thing was _still alive,_" the girl in the back said. "And that it was _coming for us!_ The curse is real, that proves it!"

If Mitch didn't know that it would set off all the emergency systems in his van, the gas pedal would have gone through the floor at that moment (He'd been too far behind in the conversation to come to that realization himself). So instead, he continued to floor it down the thirty-percent slope of the hill.

The van, rocketing down the slope, was suddenly hit from the back side by what Mitch thought was a small deer. For a few moments, it rocked back and forth on its wheels. The kids in the back started shouting about something he didn't have time to comprehend, and in a few seconds he forgot they were yelling at all, concentrating instead on trying to keep his baby in good shape.

That was around the time that an undead hand smashed through the roof, and the zombie attached to it dragged itself so that its head was visible through the windshield.

The screaming started more violently from the back. In the passenger seat to his left, a girl (he couldn't remember her name) screamed as the hand thrashed around her head. Eventually, he himself couldn't help but scream along with all of them as he tried to get the vehicle back under control.

The hand eventually lost its grip and the zombie flew back. Apparently, however, it managed to pull on one of the handles of the rear doors and they flew open in the rear-view mirror.

Now Mitch intentionally tried to thrash the van to make the zombie lose its grip. The doors opened and slammed and opened again with the violent rocking of the vehicle.

The zombie's arm eventually detached from the rest of the body. He began to try to right the vehicle again as the kids in the back tried to shut the doors. One of the kids had grabbed the arm and (from what Mitch could tell) intended to keep it, but the hand jumped of its own accord and flew out the rear window of the van.

"We have to get to the old Town Hall!" the kid with the spiky hair shouted. "Hurry!"

Mitch kept the pedal down all the way to the bottom of the hill.

* * *

Mitch kept driving the van, still racing along at amazing speeds, through the suburban streets of Blithe Hollow.

He had to get to the Town Hall somehow. _That was where the kid told me, right?_

He hoped so.

Mitch drove down what he thought were the correct roads to get there, but eventually they stumbled upon a protest of sorts in the middle of an intersection. He quickly grabbed the steering wheel and did a sharp turn to the left into what he hoped wasn't a building. He kept his foot on the brake the entire time, and his passengers began to scream their heads off again.

Thankfully, it was an empty parking lot where he turned, and he, miraculously, landed almost perfectly in a parking spot. Everyone jumped out of the vehicle and piled onto the blacktop.

He just stared at his van. It looked like it was going to fall apart.

"No, baby, we're going to make it through this together!" he called to his van. The blonde girl that had been in the passenger seat clutched his arm for a moment before he started walking towards his baby.

And, as if right on cue, the van completely collapsed.

That was when Mitch realized that no matter how much he spent on it, he would never be able to fix his van.

It was too much for Mitch. He broke down.

* * *

_(A/N): Sorry this has taken so long to get up! It was because, well, as you saw, I told it through Mitch, and that was because I wanted to:_

_A) Give you guys some fanservice, and_

_B) Let you guys enjoy Mitch for a bit before he's gone, since I'm not sure yet if he'll appear during the second half of the plot in any form._

_So, anyway, thanks for reading!_

_By the way, Haunted has passed 2,500 hits! Thanks everyone! :D_


	10. Nine

**HAUNTED**

_Nine_

* * *

The rest of the group watched as Alvin smashed his fist through the window to let them into Blithe Hollow's Historic Town Hall.

"So much for being stealth ninjas," Coraline said under her breath. _At least I'm not paying for the window restoration._

Alvin turned the knob and pulled the door open from the inside. Norman led the way into the building, and Coraline stayed close beside him. Someone shut the door, and they were left in semidarkness; thankfully, some lights were left on in the rooms with the archives beyond.

Coraline reached this door first and pulled it open for everyone, and all at once, she knew it was hopeless.

Books filled shelves several stories tall over capacity. Papers lay scattered all over several scattered desks with old, rusting lamps. Crates filled with countless pages of information sat everywhere.

Over three hundred years of information took massive amounts of time to sort through, and the current state of the abandoned archives wasn't going to make things easier.

She just stared for a moment, before stealing a knowing glance at Wybie. Coraline saw that he was much more on the verge of just running out there to face the zombies than she was.

She walked off to a desk and began sorting through papers, looking for anything - _anything_ - that might help. She kept looking at the dates, for the word 'witch' to appear anywhere on the few papers that were death certificates in the sizable stack.

She hoped.

* * *

Coraline couldn't tell how long it had been before people started giving out. Norman's sister was the first to go.

Coraline tried to ignore Courtney's harsh words as long as she possibly could, before she listened and agreed unwillingly. She looked up and saw Mitch nodding absently in a corner; Alvin trying to 'read' some pages and listening.

Wybie was just staring at her, torn.

"Then just GO!" Norman finally shouted. "Just go, all of you."

Wybie was the first to leave; Alvin was almost right behind him, and neither of them spared a glance back at the broken boy. Mitch went next, oblivious to everything except for the fact that people were leaving. Courtney glanced back, barely, before going to the front entrance with the rest of them.

Coraline couldn't bear to see Norman like that, on the verge of tears. She walked over to him and whispered a few words in his ear.

"You know," she whispered with a slight hint of humor, "I've always thought that 'crazies' should stick together."

It was forgiveness. She knew it wasn't enough, but shut the tall doors and helped him keep searching.

* * *

That was when the front of the building began to turn to ash from arson, and zombies poured in through the back.

Coraline would have said something to Norman at the moment they realized they were surrounded, but nothing came to mind.

Then Norman began to speak, and whatever doubts she might have had evaporated.

He ran off with the book eventually, and Coraline, trusting his instincts, began to lead the zombies through the burning building to the front entrance.

* * *

_(A/N): So, anyway, wanted to get this done with. I wanna be nice to my readers, and give you more to read! :D_

_I really want to write more. I've got everything else sorted out, everyone! It's just a matter now of putting pen on paper. Everything else is arranged like I want it, and it's all going to go a good deal quicker now! Yay!_

_Anyway, enjoy the little bits of... heh... 'interpretable' Normaline I put in there for you. Prepare for more. Boatloads of it, but just the raw stuff. None of this 'interpretable' stuff._


	11. Ten

**HAUNTED**

_Ten_

* * *

The vibrant white lighting from the end of the scene in the vision sparked all around him. It formed patterns of various sizes and shapes - there were dragons and demons, lost hopes and crushed dreams, fire and ice and death and destruction. All the while, Agatha's pained scream carried over like an echo, the pitch getting higher and lower in time with the ever-quickening pace of the lightning before him.

It occured to Norman that it was a dance - one of pain and sadness and countless years of suffering in the dark.

The scream began to fade until it was no longer audible. The bands of lightning, one by one, winked out, leaving behind only smoke where they once arced.

When the smoke cleared, he saw two familiar faces: the same men, Musket and Pitchfork, watched Agatha make her final struggles on the tree, and then left the clearing, leaving the body to rot.

Norman had just watched Agatha die.

Suddenly, a woman burst into the clearing, carrying a small pocketknife that was unfolded. When she saw the body hanging from the tree, she immediately burst into tears and began to shake on the ground, leaving her long dark hair to sheath her face and protect her pale skin from the cold.

Eventually, the woman couldn't bear it anymore, and ran back out of the clearing. Norman only caught one word as she left.

_Pay._

* * *

"Norman, please, wake up!"

Someone was kneeling over him. His head hurt; it took his eyes a few seconds to focus properly.

"Coraline?" he asked her.

She sighed, and a few strands of blue hair brushed her cheek. Coraline ran her left hand through her hair and it revealed as it passed two small burns on her forehead and some wiry singed hairs near them.

Her expression then settled into one of playful anger, and Norman earned his very first punch on the shoulder.

"Don't ever do anything like that again!" she shouted.

He wanted to laugh for a moment, but she looked really upset. He settled with sitting up instead.

"Where is everyone else?" he asked her as he stood up. Coraline raced with him through the streets of the town, barely noticing what they were passing. He focused instead on where she was leading him at her breakneck pace.

"They're following one of the zombies," she told him in little spurts. "The mob wanted to kill them all, but I saw what you did with the zombies earlier. We barely got the mob under control, but they relented eventually."

"How long was I out?" Norman asked, almost out of breath. They'd run several blocks already.

"About fifteen minutes," Coraline answered quickly. "There they are!"

The two of them shot up a small hill to the end of a gravel road. There was their group, waiting there for them. Once reunited, the group proceeded into a dead forest.

That was when everything went bad.

The trees almost came alive and moved by some unseen force, trapping his friends behind him. More seemed to move by the second, blocking his way back. They were beginning to crowd around him as well.

"Norman, just go!"

Norman looked back and saw Wybie peering through the trees at him.

"Coraline won't be happy, but you just have to stop this! _Go!"_

Norman bolted down the narrow path, one that seemed to grow more aggressive as he progressed.

* * *

He stood in the clearing, the clearing where bits of each of his visions had taken place. There was the tree Agatha had died on.

Norman sensed the sinister presence that had been speaking with him, the electrical ghost that haunted him.

It said one final thing to him before their battle started.

"I don't want to go to sleep. _And you can't make me!"_

* * *

_(A/N): If you haven't already guessed, I don't care about ParaNorman's canon plotline anymore. It's been over a month since I saw the movie, and I barely remember a thing about it. Just thought you'd want to know._

_**Also, this is the third-to-last chapter in the first half of the plot! **__By Chapter Thirteen, a ton of stuff happens:_

_A. Cat shows up. __**Team Cat FOREVA!**_

_B. Why am I spoiling my plot?_

_C. Loser. You thought I would list more than several pointless ones?_

_And then, after that, we get into the part that I've really had fun with. Anyone like character studies? Hehehe..._

_I actually have pretty much everything after this point completely planned out for months. I'll roughly be able to __**double my publishing rate**__ now, so get excited! :D_


	12. Eleven

**HAUNTED**

_Eleven_

* * *

Wybie wondered how Norman was going to begin explaining what exactly had happened in the last day or so. He at least had some relative proof to believe Norman on now, but then again, Wybie wasn't sure if he was ready to believe him.

The three children sat in a circle in front of the tree where all had ended, and just sat there for a little while. It was a quiet Saturday, and Wybie could assume that Norman would rather have just left behind, and would move on to the present and enjoy the company of his friends.

Wybie, however, was nearly getting impatient with him. He had been tempted to ask several times what had happened, but he never did it. So the days passed, and a week later, here they were.

He opened his mouth to ask about it when Coraline, as if by magic, asked it for him. "So... what really happened, anyway? Last weekend."

Norman fidgeted, uncomfortable yet relieved. "The witch was a little girl, Agatha," he said. "My however-many-greats aunt or something. She could see ghosts too, and that's why they hanged her."

The spell of tension was broken for a moment, and Wybie asked a question.

"So she just went crazy or something when they tried to kill her?"

Coraline shot Wybie a look, but Norman didn't seem to mind. "Well, put yourself in her place. You've got an ability no one understands and no one believes is real, and then you're going to be killed for it. I think the automatic reaction for that is 'Panic mode'."

"What happened to the rest of her family?" Coraline wondered.

"I don't really know," Norman said. "Agatha mentioned her mom a few times while I was talking to her, but nothing really specific about her came up. And I doubt she would have known, anyway."

At that moment, Wybie thought he saw something small, skinny and black move in the trees a fair distance away. At first, he thought it was Cat hunting mice.

Then he remembered that he and Coraline were about a thousand miles from the Pink Palace, if not a little more.

He sat through the rest of the conversation as it turned from the dark topic. Wybie didn't allow himself to follow the conversation; he needed the sanctity of his own mind.

* * *

Wybie could sometimes tell when something was about to go wrong.

_Of course, _he thought, _every kid sometimes thinks they can._

But at the same time, he saw a large stack of coincidences staring back at him - zombies had risen up from the ground, the Witch had been defeated, everything became 'happily ever after'.

The fact that he had seen what looked like Cat in the woods didn't help his thoughts, either. Wybie still wasn't sure if the 'night' he helped Coraline fight the hand was a dream or not, and couldn't make heads or tails of it. And Cat had led him to that.

Wybie tried - and failed - to shut his brain off; he tried - and failed - to study for his English test on Monday.

* * *

_(A/N): So, anyway, I hope everybody's happy! :D I just updated yesterday, but I wanted to get this down and update again for you guys :)_

_Also, as you can tell, we're currently sitting in a small transitional period between the first and second halves of the plot. The next chapter will also be in this transitional period, and will be told through Norman, and the chapter after that will begin the second act._

_Chapter Thirteen is already written; I just have to finish and type up Chapter Twelve and then you guys get twelve AND thirteen at the same time! ;D_

_Also, here's something I've noticed: __**I only have two consistent reviewers now.**_

_I'm not sure whether that's just because I'm coming out with chapters faster or what, but my number of reviewers is falling. I like reviews; replying to them is fun, especially if people start theorizing in them about what's going to happen._

_Anyway, I just wanted to point out to you that you're not off the hook XD_


	13. Twelve

**HAUNTED**

_Twelve_

* * *

Slowly, the blackness of sleep faded to an even darker black, and then a voice spoke to him.

"So… I know your strengths, child. You have controlled chaos, defeated evils, spoken with the speechless, destroyed curses. I've even teased you with the truth, once or twice.

"But have you ever faced fear itself before? Have you ever defeated fear in a battle of wits, with more than life on the line?"

There was silence. Something glinted in the shadows.

"I've come to take back what's mine. She'll come with me and then be lost to the darkness forever.

"And then, my little Norman… when I'm done with her, I'm coming back for you."

A patch of the dark grew to an even deeper shade. The silhouette of – what? A person? – stood there in the shadows.

"Goodbye…"

Something glinted again. A whispered taunt floated on a sea of darkness.

"_Let the fear eat you alive._"

For a moment, parts of the silhouette glinted, and then the dream was gone.

* * *

Norman woke up a minute before his zombie alarm clock started groaning.

He'd had the strangest dream the night before, but couldn't remember the majority of it. Norman was nervous about what he did remember, though.

It was a Sunday morning, though – he could do whatever he wanted, for the time being.

Norman rolled out of bed, got dressed, and brushed his hair and teeth in the bathroom before returning to his room. He sat on his bed and took out a dog-eared zombie novel to read for umpteenth time.

His grandmother floated by the doorway in half an hour, clearly coming to check on him and see if he was sleeping. Norman looked up from the book, smiled, and nodded at her, and she moved on to haunt another room in the house.

But he grew restless. He needed to get outside for some air.

Ten minutes later, nobody was up, so Norman went downstairs and wrote a note to place on the kitchen table.

_Went out to get some air. I'll be back soon. Norman_

He grabbed a sweatshirt and walked out the door, into the cool dawn air. The sun had only been up for half an hour or so.

_It's hard to believe it's almost winter,_ Norman thought absently. _The sun's up already, but it's still cold._

He didn't realize where he was walking until he was there, on the edge of town. Few ghosts were near the woods here, but the ones that were floated lazily by him in an untouchable breeze.

Something walked out of the woods. It looked almost like a black rabbit, but it didn't hop. When it got a bit closer, Norman realized it was a cat, but it didn't approach him.

He left the cat alone and was prepared to turn around when a voice spoke to him from behind.

"Your _aura's_, like, _dark, _man. Something bad's gonna happen to you, dude. Just watch out for a while - something_ totally far out_ is coming."

He turned around, but the ghost had been talking to him - doubtlessly the female hippie - was already drifting away over a few backyards.

The ghost's words didn't make him feel any better. Norman began the long walk home, unsure what to think of all the things he had seen.

* * *

_(A/N): Double update! Real A/N on next chapter! :D_


	14. Thirteen

**HAUNTED**

_Thirteen_

* * *

The cat ran through the foreign streets, transfixed on its route. It knew exactly where it needed to go.

It sniffed the air and blinked its cerulean eyes; through another backyard, down another alley. It followed its senses, searched for the right scent trails.

Time was of the essence. He needed to get there as quickly as possible, no matter what.

There it was - her scent was more concentrated here, as was the boy's. It mingled with another smell, less defined, that he didn't recognize, but he disregarded that fact for the moment and concentrated on his goal.

The cat slipped through a crack in the fence and focused on finding a way to get to the upstairs window unnoticed.

It dashed into some nearby dead bushes. The brambles knotted themselves in his dark fur and threatened to keep him there forever, but he ignored them. He sat and planned for a little while.

After his plan was thought out, he ran, rapidly, toward the side of the house, and opened his own little portal that opened near the top of a tree close to her window.

It was a quick matter to jump across the branches, fly over the gaps between them, and land on the abandoned windowsill. It was covered in peeling paint flakes and splintered chaotically under his careful paws.

The sun had sunk completely below the horizon when the cat tapped twice on the glass with its paw. At first, he didn't see the girl behind the boxes stacked in front of the window; she eventually came to move one so that they could see each other.

Just as he had hoped, the sight of him made her open the window immediately. At first, she petted him for a bit, asking him what he was doing here, and the cat mewled, requesting his own time to talk. It had not come to be adored, no matter how high that was on his list of priorities.

He had come with news that he needed to deliver.

"Well, what's your problem, Cat?" the girl asked, as sarcastic and feisty as when he had first seen her. "Why'd you come here, anyway?"

The cat blinked and bared its teeth slightly as it sensed a change in the room. Something was off. Its ears picked up tiny clicking noises that it couldn't identify.

It made a sign that it hoped the girl could identify: it sat down on the box it had been standing on, closed its eyes, and pawed one with its front paw multiple times.

"What? What's _that _supposed to mean?"

He opened his eyes and stared in horror at the space behind the girl. Sitting on another box was the source of the metallic clicking noises.

The cat mewled.

The hand jumped.

One of its metal appendages - supposedly the index finger - embedded itself into his chest, just barely missing his heart. He fell onto the box in pain. The piece of metal was then pulled out, leaving him to bleed and die.

It turned and saw its next victim, jumped, and as she fled, landed on the back of her head with such force that she fell over onto her face and stopped moving on impact.

The last thing he saw before he died was a small metal hand dragging a bloodied blue-haired girl by her left ear to a door that wasn't in a specific corner five minutes beforehand. All of this was from a vantage point on top of a doggy cardboard box turning red with blood and then dripping all over the room.

But even those that were killed in the worst possible way rise from the ashes of the earth like a phoenix, creating new life from old.

The cat was awake again, sitting on the fringes of reality like a tree at the edge of a forest.

And much like the tree, he was only visible to those who looked closely enough to see.

* * *

_(A/N): I had fun writing this. This is the third time I've killed Cat on record; my excuse is that since he's so fun to write, I just love him to death. XD_

_(What, __**you**__ think Cat's __**yours? **__Fight me for him! _**FIGHT ME!**_)_

_Anyway, I bet people are excited. And if you're not, get psyched, people. This is where the character studies I talked about come into play. You know, the ones about their worst fears?_

_Sadly, Wybie's and Norman's lists are still lagging a bit behind Coraline's. Especially Wybie's, since I can't really pad it with Normaline filler. The few fears that I do have for Wybie, though, will be greatly satisfying, and probably enough for everyone. Same thing with Norman, in general, 'cuz not all the Normaline there is random filler... hehehe..._

_My good readers, how much awesomesauce do you want with your epikness?_


	15. Fourteen

**HAUNTED**

_Fourteen_

* * *

When Mrs. Jones' scream pierced the cold morning air, Wybie rolled over, mumbled something along the lines of 'Five more minutes', and buried his head under his pillow.

Then true alertness set in as she continued to scream.

He sat bolt upright, jumped out of bed, and ran down the hall to where his adopted parents began to panic.

Wybie wondered what made them scream so loudly.

And then he saw, and he screamed, too.

* * *

The police showed up at their residence a few minutes after a frantic 911 call. They inspected it, and Wybie listened in as the officers discussed the crime scene.

"It makes no sense, Mike," one of them said. "No fucking sense. Nobody _heard_ a thing – except the kid, yeah, but he thought it was a stack of books. Nobody _saw_ a thing, either. Stealth Ninja just waltzes in here, kills the cat, takes the girl somewhere – or maybe just her body, for all we know – and leaves to do whatever the fuck he wants. All without leaving fingerprints, footprints, glove residue… They don't pay us enough for cases like this, Mike."

The other man, Mike, answered him. "I know they don't fucking pay us enough, Frank. I say case closed; the guy got away with it, and he's raping her in Mexico right now. Absolutely nothing to send into the labs. Might as well go get an espresso and not waste any more time here."

"We should at least try to sort out whose blood is whose," Frank said. "It's the only thing we can send in right now. We need a team of professionals on-site to get anything else, not just some minimum-wage volunteers like us." He laughed a sarcastic laugh.

"These makrs over here – do they mean the body was dragged?"

"I can't tell, Frank. I don't know shit about that. Let's just call in an investigation team and get it over with."

"Fine, then."

The two men walked calmly out of the room, ignoring Wybie where he had been snooping in the hall.

He took a few steps into the room and looked around again. The blood was almost all dry already, pointing from the window towards the opposite corner like the cops had said.

Something was wrong with the wallpaper.

Wybie walked up to the corner and felt the bubbles – or what looked like bubbles – in it. Something white fell out from behind an overlapping layer and hit the floor with a muted dinging sound, like metal hitting wood.

He picked it up and unrolled the piece of paper wrapped around the object. On the paper were printed five cruel words:

_I've taken her. Come see…_

Wybie peeled back the wallpaper completely, and upon seeing what lay behind it, ran back into his room to think for a while.

With the piece of paper, there had been a key.

In the wall, a door.

* * *

_(A/N): If you're wondering about the names of the police officers, YES. IT IS MIKE AND FRANK FROM __**AMERICAN PICKERS**__._

_The end._

_Anyway, I wanted to give you guys a double update, but Fifteen is turning out to be WAY longer than I expected. It's the __**length**__ of a double update and I'm not even done yet, so you guys should be happy. XD_

…_MR. GOOBER._

_The (real) end._

_(Or not.)_

_(Now it is.)_

_(Okayimmashutupnow.)_


	16. Fifteen

**HAUNTED**

_Fifteen_

* * *

Norman walked out of his last class debating the merits of the rumors he had overheard during the day. From what he could tell, a house had been broken into the night before (apparently only a few blocks from his own) and the police had to come sort it out in the morning.

"But whose house was it?" he asked one of the kids that were talking about it.

"I don't know," a girl whispered back. "I live on the other side of town from where Lucy told me it was."

Norman walked down the road in silence, smiling and waving to the few ghosts that passed him. There seemed to be fewer of them out on the streets today.

A skinny, dark, ghostly cat took a lazy stroll down the sidewalk towards him, seemingly innocent and leisurely with nowhere to go. It seemed to recognize him, somehow.

He and the dead cat were alone on the slowly darkening street. The sun was setting so much earlier than it had been.

"Here, kitty," he called to it. It continued walking, seemingly annoyed and enthralled at the same time, and sat down just out of reach from where he had bent down.

"I'm afraid I don't respond to that very inappropriate term, thank-you-very-much," it said. "And while I do enjoy being stroked, I have more important matters to attend to."

It stood up to move and started walking again when Norman called out.

"Wait! What are you? Only dead _people_ could talk before."

The cat turned around and flashed him a feline grin. "So, you can see _and_ hear me," it said. "That's interesting… and there are others, as well?"

"Yeah," Norman answered. "But I don't know where they are right now…"

"Yes, yes," the cat told him. It grinned again, wider this time. "Just wanted to make sure you weren't _seeing things._"

Norman was sure it would have cackled, but it didn't.

"Anyway," it continued, "they're not here because I am, as I'm strange and haven't been here in a while. They're also aware of what happened last night at your friend's house."

"What?"

The cat jumped up on a fence and gave him a grave look. "Bad things are happening. Bad, bad things."

"Well, what happened?" Norman asked again.

It evaded the question, and instead walked a bit closer to him and sniffed the air. "Thought so. I needed to check your scent, either way. How much has she told you about _her?_"

"Coraline's told me a good amount about herself, if that's what you mean," Norman answered.

The cat's eyes widened and then closed mournfully. "No," it whispered. It opened its eyes and stared sadly at a point somewhere beyond Norman's left shoulder. "What has she told you about… the Beldam?"

Norman barely saw it flinch at the last two words. He pretended not to notice.

"Coraline told me that the Beldam is some sort of button-eyed witch that –"

"So you've got the basics," the cat said, clearly reacting to Norman's phrase. "Stole her away, she played a game with it, almost lost without my help. A lot of my help, I should add," it said cattily. "Now, unfortunately, I'm not of much use, because I don't have physical claws anymore. But here's the important part: last night, her house wasn't broken into – _she_ was in there the whole time, waiting for the right moment. And now _she's_ got her."

Norman didn't know how to respond.

"I have a lot to explain," the cat finally whispered with its eyes closed. "I should have died, you should have let me… come with me…"

"What are you talking about?" Norman asked.

It opened its eyes and looked up at him. "Your family's trick may be able to let you see _some_ things, but there are other layers of reality that it _can't_ look into. Follow."

Norman walked with the cat further down the road, and then they turned onto another darker street.

* * *

"You're going to have to convince Wyborne that I'm with you," the cat told Norman. "He won't believe you otherwise – I'm almost certain of that."

Norman walked up to the house and knocked, three short, low raps on the front door.

Wybie answered the door after a minute or two. "Go away, stupid repor- oh, it's you, Norman."

Norman answered a bit shyly. He and Wybie still didn't get along all the time. Well, me and a dead cat that claims to know you."

Wybie did a double take. "That was Cat? ... I'll have to ask you a few questions."

Norman looked wordlessly back at the cat, which grinned. "I've known Wyborne for a _long_ time."

Wybie led the two of them into his living room, a relatively large space with a couch, a coffee table, and a few assorted boxes that had yet to be packed. The three of them stood off in a corner.

"Okay, question one," Wybie said. "What's my favorite color?"

"_Easy,_" the cat remarked. "The color of my eyes. Come up with _decent _questions."

It opened its mouth in a wide yawn to display its boredom at the question.

"The color of the cat's eyes," Norman answered. "A light bluish color."

Wybie scrunched his face up slightly. "Question two. When did I build my first motorbike?"

"When you were eight," the cat answered easily, staring at Wybie. "Try to find something that I might _not_ know about. I dare you, Wyborne."

Norman shrugged. "He said when you were eight."

The mop-headed boy's eye twitched. "Question three. What was my favorite stuffed animal until I was five?"

The cat answered the question with all of its usual snark. Norman had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

"Uh," he said, "do you want a paraphrased answer, or his exact words?"

"Exact words," Wybie said darkly.

"Okay," Norman said. He tried to keep a straight face as he tried to mimic the cat's feline accent. "Your favorite stuffed animal, Wyborne, is a lime green teddy bear with beady black eyes, which you decided to name _'Mr. Goober' _for whatever reason. _'Mr. Goober' _is currently sitting on top of the bookshelf in the back corner of your room, where you hope Coraline won't find it. _Correction: _he was your favorite until you were _seven, _not _five, _and the only reason you stopped playing with it _then_ is because you had realized that having a _comfort object _in second grade isn't exactly _appropriate_ in the eyes of the average person."

There was a shattering silence in the room as the cat smiled in triumph at Wybie's face, Norman tried not to laugh, and Wybie was lost in his own little shattering world. Finally, however, the silence was broken.

"God _damn_ it!" Wybie said.

"So do you believe me now?" Norman asked after he'd chuckled.

"Yes," Wybie admitted. "I'll believe anything you say for the moment."

The cat grinned and looked at Norman. "Wyborne always takes a bit of _convincing, _but he _can_ be convinced."

Norman didn't know how to reply. Instead, he began to explain the full situation to Wybie.

After it was done, both of the boys were silent for a minute or so, and then Wybie removed something from a pocket.

"I've been having similar thoughts," he admitted. "When we fought the hand - long story," he added at Norman's quizzical look, "In a way, I thought I was dreaming at the time, and that somehow the dream managed to line up with reality later. But now this..." he trailed off, rolling the key between two fingers nervously. "I don't know anymore."

"You don't have to know, either of you," the cat replied, knowing the boy couldn't hear him. "But time is running out, and you still need to collect something."

"What?"

The cat didn't answer. It just walked.

_(A/N): Sorry sorry sorry! I didn't intend this one to take so long, but I had to put a lot of stuff through Norman, and I change the POV every chapter... yeah. :P_

_Anyway, Nicktendo Squad knows the contents of the next chapter. Well, roughly. Knows one line, at minimum._

_...because I didn't put it in Twelve... heh... heh... yeah._

_The chapter after the next chapter (Seventeen), we'll get back to Coraline, for those of you that want to see what happened to her. Ohh, that one's going to be so fun to write... I've got most of it planned already. In fact, pretty much all of it. A few things need to be changed from my first drafts of it, because my whole concept of the fear games changed a lot over the months._

_...Hard to believe that I started this story almost two months ago. Fifteen days away from two months. Wow..._

_Also, I know, I know. I haven't gotten around to replying to the reviews on one of the chapters. Thing is, I can't remember which chapter it is, so it's kinda a problem. Gah. I think it was... I don't know._

_Sorry, though, if I didn't reply to yours. My computer crashed when I was doing it and I lost all my stuff that I had open online. :(_

_Anyway, I told you it would be the length of a double update. Did I keep my promise? XD_


	17. Sixteen

**HAUNTED**

_Sixteen_

* * *

The old woman looked up at the sky, a dark, cloudy grey expanse, and felt a feeling of foreboding.

"Something wicked this way comes..." she whispered to herself. Mrs. Henscher proceeded to hurry off her doorstep and into her small car, hoping to make her grocery shopping trip as fast as possible.

That was when two boys snuck out of a dead bush along the side of her house, one appearing to lead, and one appearing to follow.

Wybie walked a few feet behind Norman, trying to duck below the fence they were walking along. He hoped that Norman (or, more likely, Cat) knew what he was doing; they were having to _break into their teacher's house _(not that Wybie liked her very much) to search for something that _might_ be there, which, once found, _might _help them save Coraline, who _might _already be dead.

Wybie didn't like the odds.

"Norman, how is this going to work?" he asked quietly.

Norman, though, apparently didn't hear him. Wybie wondered what the Cat was saying, or if Norman was just staring intently at nothing at all.

"Sure," he finally said. "The cat's going to look for an entrance and try to let us in."

_Tell me why we're trying to rob this woman's house again,_ Wybie thought to himself. _Oh, yeah. There's no specific reason that could actually have any possible use._

Wybie heard a door swing open. He looked up, and Norman was holding the rear screen door to the house.

"Come on," he beckoned.

Inside the house, it looked like one half of the main room was dedicated to the occult and the other half was the shrine to stage musicals of the 1960's. A mantle over a small electric fireplace held up an assortment of pictures and knick-knacks, each different from the ones next to it.

Wybie inspected the mantle. In one picture on the top of a stack were three young women in graduation caps and gowns, smiling at the taker of the black-and-white photograph. On the back were three lines of text:

_Me, April and Miriam_

_Graduation_

_June 12, 1957_

Wybie moved on to the next set of pictures, and then a jar of assorted office supplies (paper clips, a pushpin, and what seemed to be a small paperweight). It seemed hopeless.

Then he stumbled upon a small box in the occult half and opened it to reveal a glass triangular prism, an old key, a hay-penny, a deck of tarot cards, and small stone with a hole in it.

"Norman?" he called out. "Is this what we're looking for?"

* * *

"Do you think we're ready?"

Wybie sighed before he looked up at Norman.

"As we'll ever be. We don't have much time, either way."

"Give me the key."

Wybie pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to Norman, who handled it like it was a vial of poison.

The lock clicked.

It was the beginning of the end.

* * *

_(A/N): The beginning of the end indeed!_

_Now, for those of you who are not as well versed in the Coraline canon, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible's first names are April and Miriam, respectively. I support so many crossover theories for ParaNorman/Coraline ALONE that it's crazy._

_Anyway, double update! :D_


	18. Seventeen

**HAUNTED**

_Seventeen_

* * *

Norman pushed open the door on the other side of the dark spider-webbed tunnel and crawled into the massive space. It was so dark he could hardly see anything at all; he heard Wybie stand up beside him. The cat had mysteriously disappeared; he paid no mind to it.

It was a cavern. The ceiling seemed to be a mile overhead; everything was covered in stone formations. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like inverted spires, sharp and deadly, ready to break their bonds and crush all that remained below.

A single small, dark passage loomed in the distance on the opposite side of the cavern. The distant sounds of someone crying could be heard echoing around the walls.

"Only one way to go," Norman said.

The two boys walked across the rough floor of the space. The cavern groaned at odd points of time, as if it was preparing to collapse. The crying continued, a haunting soundtrack to the dismal events of the day.

Eventually, it opened into another room, another massive cavern. This room, however, was decorated differently; the stalactites were still there, as were other stone formations. Another tunnel branched out opposite them, just like the previous room.

In the center of the floor there was a lipped pool of lava, completely calm. A shrouded figure lay crouched next to it, the source of the crying, partially lit by the light of the lava, enough to look like it was covered with some sort of cloth. Norman approached it slowly, with Wybie lingering behind him somewhere.

Once he was close enough to the small figure, he realized that some sort of old rotting blanket, soaked in blood, was covering the person. He grabbed a small fistful of it and pulled it off, horrified at the sight of the person under the blanket.

"Coraline?"

The crying stopped. "You were my friend," she whispered.

"What?"

"YOU WERE MY FRIEND!" she screamed, looking up at him, slashing out at his legs with her weakened, bloody arms. He backed up, knowing that the cause was lost.

They were too late. The beldam already had her prize.

Then the figure stilled, and it did not move. However, gravity won over the unstable position the body had been in, and it fell over, button eyes and all, into the lava.

A fire started on the skin and spread everywhere in a flash, as if it were made of cloth soaked in gasoline. It was a horrifying sight; the skin burned with concentrated intensity, the flames extremely hot; it burned away in patches, and something spilled out, almost like...

"Sawdust. Sawdust and cloth. It's all that's required to delude a child."

The voice startled him, and his horror was almost forgotten to his confusion. Norman looked up at the source; Wybie seemed to be close by.

There, on the opposite side of the lava pool from them, lit in the ghastly red-orange light, was the strangest being he had ever seen. A metal skeleton, shining with red light; a face of cracked porcelain, with lips the color of blood and greasy hair like black silk; button eyes like black stars, neatly sewn; a dress that had been torn to shreds and reassembled a size larger.

This was the creature that had taken Coraline.

"Ultimately, that's all that's required to create a world for a child to adore. The skills of a mother: sewing, tailoring, toymaking. Of course, there has to be love in any relationship."

It had a voice like silk, smooth, dangerous, and seductive.

Neither boy knew how to express their thoughts in words. The beldam expressed it for them.

"No, that wasn't Coraline," it said. "I wouldn't treat my children with such cruelty."

Norman wasn't sure whether to be relieved or horrified. He remembered what the cat had said, though.

"A game."

The monster smiled. "So, that vermin has informed you of my preferences? It's so kind. But I've already picked out what I want to play."

"And what do you want to play?" Wybie asked.

"Fear games. A three-for-all."

"Fear games?" Wybie inquired.

It grinned, revealing teeth like white knives. "Your worst fears displayed before your very eyes until you're screaming for mercy, needing it to stop, desperate for a way out of the pain... even if the way out is death. And if anyone gives up, all of you are mine."

"So then you _haven't_ killed Coraline yet," Norman said.

It pursed its lips, and then gave a smug smile. "Perhaps."

Norman looked at Wybie. He seemed somewhat reluctant, but they both knew what they needed to do.

"Let's play."

_(A/N): Would you believe me if I told you that I had this one completely ready before I even finished the fifth paragraph of Sixteen?_

_Well, I did. So there._

_It seems, though, that I've made a lot of people excited over all this Norman/Wybie bonding time. I had one reviewer (You know who you are) that chat-screamed at their excitedness over Norman/Wybie overload._

_Every good thing has to come to an end, unfortunately. As much fun as I've had playing with Norman and Wybie for FOUR WHOLE CHAPTERS, I am required to show you now what happened to Coraline while she was... ahem... away._

_If you're wondering where Cat went, that's where._

_So, the next chapters will be up way, way, WAY faster now, partially because I have more ideas for these chapters, and partially because I wanted to skip to the part where I get to torture these guys XD_

_I will be back soon, my readers, with more epikness! :D_


	19. Eighteen

**HAUNTED**  
_Eighteen_

* * *

Coraline awoke unable to see anything. She thought she opened her eyes, but still it was completely dark. She lay there, disoriented, for a few moments, before she tried to sit up.

She stood up once she was no longer dizzy and began to walk around the room with her hands out in front of her. Eventually, she felt cold iron bars, bent and twisted.

Coraline knew where she was. It hadn't been a dream.

"The only room in the place she actually left intact - it's almost sad," a voice spat. "Need some light?"

"Sure, Cat," she answered the darkness.

"This is a special place where ghosts can manifest freely," he said as his ghostly blue form flared up to illuminate the room. "I think she made one partially because_ she _didn't want to be the only one."

"The only what?" Coraline asked.

The Cat ignored her. "I've come to get you out of here. The game has started, fortunately, so she can't currently finish what she very nearly started," he said. "Touch your eyelids. I'm not sure if she'd remember, but that would make it symbolic, almost, if it left a mark."

Coraline reached up to her face, suddenly afraid, and was relieved when she felt skin. Her fingers moved up from her cheeks to below her eyes to her eyelids. The right eyelid had a raw gash and she winced in pain when she felt it; she couldn't tell how deep it was.

"You're alive. That's all that matters," the Cat said, sensing her distress. "And that actually makes it more likely that you'll be free to go."

"More likely? How?"

The Cat sighed and floated over to her. "I'm sorry that I haven't been completely honest with you, but we don't have time to explain. It's a long, painful story, and I don't want to begin telling it. Let's go."

He led her over to a blank wall. It melted away at her touch to form a large, dark, uninviting passage.

She stepped in.

* * *

The light beside her melted away until it wasn't there at all. The tunnel was pitch black without the cold blue light; she had to resort to feeling her way along the walls.

It slowly grew brighter, but never beyond a certain point.

The cave ended suddenly. She was now out under an almost open sky, near a crackling fire in the dark clearing. Her four best friends were crowded around the fire, one of them holding a long stick smothered with melting marshmallows. The woods around them were alive, cackling with the noises of unnamed creatures. The firelight lit up the tall trees in flashes of shimmering shadows.

They congratulated her on making it out of the cave and breaking her flashlight to boot. The curly-haired boy asked her how she wanted her marshmallows for s'mores as he pulled two out of a bag and prepared to hand them to the boy in the orange hat, who was currently holding the stick.

Just as she sat down on a log, the fire flared up from a bundle of grass tossed in by the other girl in the clearing. She thought it was really funny when the second boy jumped back. Curly Hair laughed with her, but both of them stopped when the stick of marshmallows caught on fire and burned over half of them to a crisp.

Slowly, one by one, each one of them started giggling, and then everyone was laughing their heads off. While they were distracted, she intertwined her fingers subtly with the boy next to her, the last of their group. The other girl called her out on it and everyone started laughing again.

Then the girl's head exploded, and Coraline finally realized who she was and what was happening.

Before she had moved for the first time, she, Brenna, and Wally had been the best of friends.

Now Brenna had just been shot in the head.

"Come on! We have to run!" she shouted at her friends. They seemed distant, even as another bullet whipped by her hair as she jumped up. They followed her anyway.

Only when another bullet took down Wally with a shot to the chest did the remaining two start running with her.

Then Wybie was shot, and went down screaming.

They couldn't stop. _They couldn't stop._

Then there was a scream of pain from behind her. Coraline looked back.

Norman had been shot in the hip. He couldn't walk.

"No - no! Run!" he shouted at her.

"Come on!" she screamed, running back to him. She couldn't think straight.

"It's all a trap! It's not real! Just run!"

She heard a gun fire.

Blood hit her face, and then mixed with her own.

Black.

* * *

_"Are you really sure you want to play the game? You could just submit right now, and it could all be easier."_

_"No. I'm going to play with my friends. And I'm going to win with them."_

_"There's no specific terms for how to win, you know."_

_"I know. You can just keep us here until we die. But I'd rather go down fighting."_

* * *

_(A/N): OH. MY. GOD. I'm so sorry! It's been over a week since I last updated!_

_Well, this one took forever to write. My excuse is that I had to do some research (I couldn't remember what the two kids in the picture frame looked like, and I couldn't find any pictures on Google Images, and so I had to watch the movie again..._

_Also: Brenna and Wally are my own names for those two characters. __**They are in no way, shape, or form, canon. **__I just had to come up with quick names for the two of them, because I had the idea for a scene around a random fire pit, and I thought it would be really creepy if it involved all of her friends, old and new... yeah._

_So, also, Haunted has surpassed 5000 HITS and, at the time I published this, had 89 REVIEWS! I'm so excited! :D_


	20. Nineteen

**HAUNTED**

_Nineteen_**_  
_**

* * *

He wasn't sure which realization was more horrifying: the fact that he knew he was alone, or the fact that he knew he wasn't.

The blackness around Wybie contained a strange noise. The noise was the eerieness of thousands of simultaneous breaths combined with the occasional pittery-pattery scrape of tiny claws across a stone, or the squeal of success as one small creature mauled another.

He was afraid.

He took a step. Took a step. Took a step.

Something rolled on the ground in front of him and clattered when his foot ran into it. He bent down and found the elongated tube-object and felt a switch. When he pressed it, Wybie's small, dark world was lit up by a single lit circle of straw-colored illumination.

The flashlight shook in rhythm with his hands. He moved the beam all around, and something shone for a moment before the beam moved away from it. He guided its pale ray back to the shining spot and approached it cautiously. It was too far off to identify the source in the yellowish light.

The skittering noises grew louder as he approached. He had to shut off the flashlight for safety from whatever was out there as he grew closer to the object.

Then he was in range such that he would be able to kick the object if he would have wanted to.

Turning the flashlight on again, he stared down at the mauled body and shivered in fear. Chewed intestines littered the ground. Everything was covered in blood.

Her barette had shone in the darkness.

_"Coraline?"_

Something inside her gaping, hollowed-out chest cavity moved.

Then, at the sound of his voice, three pairs of red eyes opened and stared at him.

All of the skittering noises stopped.

He ran. He had heard about rats, that they liked to strip bodies raw and leave dust and bones behind, how they would burrow in through the cheecks or the eyes, how their infinite bloodlust was that they would mercilessly follow prey...

The three rats had turned into three _thousand_ rats now.

He couldn't think. He ran.

Then Wybie tripped, and they caught him.

He felt his flesh torn to pieces, his guts torn out, rats suffocating him as they ate his lungs from the inside.

He died before it was over, and was thankful.

* * *

_(A/N): All that I know about rats I read in **1984**. I have no desire to learn more about them. Kay?_

_Here's my rant._

_Hello. I'm so-and-so from some political party calling just for the purpose of annoying your ears off._

_No, sorry. I lied. You don't care, though._

_Anyway, it's been almost three weeks since the last chapter of Haunted was posted. If we apply the exponential increase in time to every new fear games chapter of Haunted, we're looking at around February or March before things start moving again. The chance is high that, by then, I will have abandoned Haunted and settled on another project for a few months or so._

_These fear games chapters are harder to write than I expected. That means I'm waiting for an idea to start writing it, so I have the rest of the fic planned out but it can't be typed or published because the fear games are gnawing on me._

_So, anyway, I've given you guys a choice that looks like a choice, but isn't really a choice at all, because at this time I've already got the next two chapters after this one ready to type up and one of them ends the fear games._

_**OPTION ONE,**__ I write more fear games (to get it to at least two chapters for each kid), or_

_**OPTION B,**__ I skip to the planned part and you guys get a chapter every few days, or_

_**DOOR NUMBER THREE,**__ Nyan Cat battling Slenderman to the death._

_I know what Norman's fear is (considering I've already written it... Thanks again, __**Nicktendo Squad**__!). It'll be up pretty soon after this one._

_So... bye._

_PS: I'd pick __**option 3!**_

_PPS: Please review this chapter and the next two or so or whenever I run out of chapters to publish tonight. Even just a sentence or two keeps my typing army's morale up (aka, my fingers)._


	21. Twenty

**HAUNTED**

_Twenty_

* * *

If he collected eight pages, they would win this stupid game and all go free. He just had to collect eight pages by the light of his flashlight, and it would all be fine.

Norman felt that he was being watched. Or no - not just that he was being watched.

He felt he was being stalked.

Norman wandered through the silent woods, wondering where exactly he was supposed to be looking for were hidden.

Then he saw it - there, pinned to a tree, was a strange note. The tree was very large and looked like it could have been a few hundred years old.

It reminded him in a strange way of Aggie's tree, and for a moment he admired it in the beam of the flashlight. He grabbed the first page and moved on.

He had wasted forty-five seconds.

* * *

The forest, as silent as it always was, held him captive. Norman had two pages. He needed six more, and he wouldn't let himself focus for too long on anything that wasn't finding those pages.

Norman glanced in the trees along the path he had been following. There, about forty feet back, a tall man in a dark suit appeared.

Every instinct screamed for him to run.

He froze for a few seconds. Then he ran.

* * *

The distorted figure appeared eight more times as he searched. It seemed to be growing more aggressive as he continued collecting pages.

Norman had seven.

The last place to check was a house-like structure in the center of the forest.

Rushing inside the building, Norman turned on the flashlight again and started looking for the last one he needed.

He knew it was there somewhere.

Then the beam of the flashlight caught it, and he knew he had won. He just had to reach out his hand and -

Norman was brutally forced to turn around by a power that seemed to be similar to telekinesis. There was the faceless tall being, standing only a few feet away.

His vision went black, and Norman felt himself being carried. Where to, he had no idea.

But he had lost.

No -_ they _had lost. They all had.

It was his fault.

* * *

_(A/N): Thanks again to __**Nicktendo Squad **__for this 'little' blurb of our 300-PMs-long conversation that inspired this chapter._

_(If you're interested and feeling creeper-like, it's part of an ongoing RP we've had going on there involving me, her, Coraline, and Norman. This is the part where we started playing Slender in the RP, after we messed with Minecraft and comic books and a night club... soo... yeah...)_

* * *

(If it's too nerve-wracking, don't force yourself. :) In my opinion, it's probably more frightening than Amnesia, or just as much... Haven't touched Amnesia in a while. :P)

She's done that ever since I met her. Go fig.

And Wolf, if this cheat of yours somehow pulls Slender out of the screen, I'll kill you before he does.

C: Don't even joke about that, please... *shudders* ... Alright, Norm. Let's see if you're as fearless of Slenderman as you are with zombies.

10/20

_(I've seen the Let's Plays. It's just... disturbing. I'm not sure if Amnesia or this would be more frightening... Especially now that I've been watching Marble Hornets pretty much nonstop all day...)_

_No, no, no. I wish I had some sort of machine to do that. That would be awesome... chaos and destruction... yeah._

_But no. It's just pressing a bunch of buttons in a certain order to unlock a special cheat._

_*muttering* Slenderman want his twenty bucks, I'll give him forty... heh heh..._

_N: Well, let's see what I can do..._

_I'm starting to regret this already._

_[MY GOD._

_NORMAN PLAYING SLENDER._

_THANK YOU. THANK. YOU._

_TAKE MY MONEY. TAKE ALL OF MY MONEY.]_

_10/20_

(I guess Amnesia is disturbing while Slender is something of paranoia/fear. Basically it plays with you're head, 'cause even if you analyze the game as much as you can, I don't think there's a pattern for when Slenderman shows. Amnesia, however, have positioned monsters. But again, both are the top fear games for me. ;) )

Well bless me that it doesn't exist... You even own a video game character money?

... I remember there was a big tr-! You want me to help you with some of the note, Norman? Or you got this?

C: He'll totally go his own with this, trust me... Just waiting for a moment of when he'll maybe scream like a baby, heheh.

[I WISH LAIKA WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS. THEY BETTER.

OH, YOU'RE WELCOME. :DD]

10/20

_(Understandable. Both of them do, from what I can tell. And apparently the house in the center of the place is a death trap, since Slenderman can spawn in the hallways... o_O_

_I'd prefer positioned monsters to randomly-teleporting ones.)_

_I'm going to invent one soon. And no, I don't owe Slendy money - he wants it!_

_N: I think I've got it for now - but where should I go first? Isn't there some sort of strategy or something for where you're supposed to go first?_

_[THEY SHOULD. THEY SO SHOULD. EITHER THAT OR WE SHOULD TURN THIS WHOLE PM INTO A VIRAL VIDEO SERIES. OH. YEAH._

_YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT, DO YOU?]_

_10/20_

(Yyyep. The house is a fun attraction... :P

I agree. I only got up to 4 notes, and I didn't see him anywhere until the guy made me turn around... that was bad...)

C: See? Case and point.

Right... And no, you have no map or even common sense of where you're in. You just have to collect the notes and keep moving, never stopping.

[YES, BRILLIANT.

I THOUGHT I DID, DON'T KILL ME.]

10/20

* * *

_So, NOW do you know what I was talking about? XD_


	22. Twenty-One

**HAUNTED**

_Twenty-One_

* * *

One by one, they awoke alone in the empty, dead-ended tunnels. The Cat watched them each in turn from a fair distance, invisible, and saw the pained yet determined looks on their faces. Each one of the children looked like they had aged a hundred years overnight. Their cheeks were sunken. Their eyes were tired.

He couldn't stand to look at them anymore.

It moved with them through their passageways one by one, floating alongside them, switching who it followed occasionally when it grew too horrified to stay with one of them.

The tunnels twisted, doubled back on themselves, but eventually they all led into the room where the children had been before, the chamber with the lava pit.

He fully manifested himself in the room, but knew the creature would have seen his ghostly glare anyway. The children barely noticed his presence as the beldam approached each of them in turn. The Cat had no desire to see or hear what she said to them, but he had to make sure that she hadn't truly become an animal.

The formless shadow floating near Norman's shoulder smiled at him and gave him comfort while the beldam spoke to the children. He faded from reality to speak with it.

"I've missed you," he whispered to it.

_It's been a long time,_ it whispered back.

"I didn't want to live with myself after what happened to both of you," he continued with his old friend. He glanced for a moment at the spider-creature. "I didn't have a choice. It worked better than expected."

_You had to live to see us be torn apart?_

"Yes."

A pause between them. The Cat appreciated the moment.

_...I'm sorry._

"It's okay. I'm going to end our pain."

Another pause.

_...Will it work?_

"I don't know," he sighed.

_Try. Please._

The shadow floated away from him. He hated to see her so torn apart.

The Cat felt a terrible rage flow through him. It took him over, every movement, every word.

It flared into visibility and watched the conversation continue.

She was speaking to Coraline. The monster was whispering, and he strained to hear it.

"You know... I can end it all. All the pain, all the suffering. I just need you to agree..."

The Cat's sudden anger made his blue glow overtake even the red of the lava. The whole chamber, including the spikes above, was covered in his blue-white light.

"No, you can't!" he shouted at the monster. "Don't you see? All you can do now is cause pain! Pain and suffering and death!"

The children stared at him. He didn't care.

"You've ended three lives while trying to replace one. Isn't that enough for you? No - you nearly ended hers. You nearly threw him down a well. You've taunted them all with dreams of death and destruction and failure. Your own daughter died on a tree. Is this how you repay _her? Is this how you repay all of them?_"

He let the rage run rampant. The children seemed scared of him.

The Cat didn't care.

"All of this pain you've caused!" it roared. "All of this suffering! And for what purpose?"

It tried to calm itself. It began to break down instead. Its tone became solemn and quiet, and its illumination died to nothing more than a dull glow.

"That's it, then," it whispered. "You've forgotten who you were. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn't be able to remember."

Then it was as if an ancient curse had been broken. The beldam's face seemed enlightened, as if it were a young child that had finally grasped the answer.

She held her head in her hands and cried, as best as a creature with no eyes can.

"Why, my pet, why? Why must there be such resentment between us?"

The Cat, taken aback, approached the metal corpse. "I have never resented you," he whispered. "I just tried to bring you back to reality."

No one said anything. The lava barely bubbled.

"Now they deserve to know," he told her.

The beldam looked up at Norman, and such sadness came from the dark pits in her face. The Cat hovered by her, comfortingly.

"Of you three, I have doubtlessly caused you the most pain," it whispered. "All I can ask for is your forgiveness and understanding, and I hardly have the right to ask that."

"Why? What happened?" the boy asked her.

The Cat looked at the poor creature and the shadow nearby. The dead, the beyond, and those just hanging on.

The creature sighed. "I remember now, who I was," it said. "I am not that person any longer."

It tried to undo the stitching on one of its button eyes with a needle-finger. The Cat realized it was trying to repent.

But it failed.

"My married name was Prenderghast," she concluded. "I was Agatha's mother."

The truth was released. It didn't change anything.

* * *

_(A/N): I've forgotten about this to place on the last two chapters._

_Anyway, Haunted has now been added to a total of THREE communities!_

_Thanks again to _**David Abbot's Favorite Stories Collection**_; _**Ranma ,Digimon ,Dragonball Z and Anything else I Think of**_; and _**escape from reality **_for adding Haunted to their archives! :D_

_Also, Haunted now has the highest position in everything across the board except in the number of words (second place, behind __**The Pamphlet**__) and the number of chapters (_also_ second place, _ALSO_ behind __**The Pamphlet**__)._

* * *

_Also, I am now aware of my silent stalker._

_Thanks for the oneshot. I enjoyed, as you know._


	23. Twenty-Two

**HAUNTED**

_Twenty-Two_

* * *

"What?" Norman asked. The others had incredulous expressions on their faces to match the boy's own.

"It's a long story," the corpse said. "The only way to tell it is from the beginning."

The Cat had faded from reality. She could tell by the change of color from bluish to green. It watched her for a moment and nodded.

Then she began.

* * *

The woman scolded the nine-year-old child. The child just couldn't seem to grasp the concepts she was presenting her.

"Agatha," the woman said, sighing. She bent down, knelt, and gripped the child's shoulders. "Not everyone can see the dead. You and I are alike - we've got a gift. But others don't see it that way. Understand?"

The nine-year-old nodded, her straight brown hair flying with each vigorous nod. The strands of hair were tangling - it would need to be brushed again. "Yes, Mother," she answered.

"Come now," her mother beckoned, tenderly taking her daughter's hand. "You have to help your father in the fields."

The child didn't move. "I don't want to help Father," Agatha said suddenly. Her lip quivered. "I want to be with you."

She knew her daughter was scared. Her husband was callous and abusive; she hadn't had a choice in marrying him.

She just gave the child a sad smile and a weak excuse. "You know I have to take care of your baby brother."

The little girl leaned in and began to cry into her mother's blouse.

"I know," her mother said. "I know. I didn't have a choice."

* * *

The stray cat walked up to their house on the day of Agatha's tenth birthday. He took a liking to her immediately and followed her around as she played in the snow outside.

It was still barely more than a kitten, with the most beautiful blue eyes.

The woman watched it from afar, its lean black paws and curious eyes, as it followed her daughter.

* * *

"Your father died in an accident yesterday. A cow kicked his neck."

Silence.

"...Thank god."

* * *

The cat had been with them for almost two years. There Agatha was, with her favorite feline friend, playing on the dying grass.

She watched them play from a window. It was a following game they were playing at the time; Agatha would lead, and the skinny cat would follow her adoringly, much to her delight.

Suddenly a loud crack was heard, and a large branch from the old tree in their yard broke off and fell. Her daughter barely avoided it.

She was running outside, screaming to make sure her Aggie was alright.

The cat was dead, its neck crushed by the tree.

The child cried.

* * *

The child's mother took her to a clearing in the woods the next day, one that they both knew well.

Even though she knew it was probably a mistake, she had to tell her Aggie that she had to get married again. If she didn't, they wouldn't be able to get enough money to pay the bills on the house, due to a deadly frost that had killed the majority of their crops.

Her son - barely three - was still too young to be concerned. She knew, however, that it would impact Agatha, who was almost twelve.

No one could have guessed the desperation it would inspire in the child. No one could have known the true power of the ability parent and child shared.

But anyone could have guessed that the child would have wanted to hang on to one last piece of her normal life.

* * *

She woke up the next day to see Agatha outside, playing with the cat.

The cat was supposed to be dead.

A disaster followed.

* * *

The mother ran, and ran, and ran, through the forest, running, running, running. The knife she held would kill or let live.

She couldn't let her daughter die for an innocent mistake.

There was the tree. There were the men standing there. She would kill them. She would kill them for doing this to her daughter.

By the time she reached the clearing, the men were gone. The body hung limp from the tree.

The sorrow drove her to madness. The pain drove her to kill.

She let the body hang and sought out the men that had watched her die.

* * *

On the doorstep of the local orphanage, a three-year-old boy was found in the morning.

Pinned to his blanket, the caretakers found a note.

_This is Elliot Prenderghast. Born on the 18th of March in the year 1706._

_I can't take care of him any more._

_Please keep him for me._

It was left unsigned. Once the residence of the Prenderghasts was found, it was discovered to be abandoned.

The boy was raised in the orphanage, alone.

* * *

She couldn't remember how much time had passed. She didn't know at all what time was.

All she knew was that she wanted a child.

She needed one. She knew hers had been taken from her somehow.

She would take one. Just like hers had been.

She would make it her own.

* * *

The children didn't last. They weren't right.

They weren't what she was looking for.

What was she looking for?

She couldn't remember.

* * *

The first true emotion she had felt in such a long time was hate.

Hate of this _girl_.

Hate of what _she_ was doing.

Hate of the fact that she was losing _her_ child.

The girl was_ hers_.

Coraline was _hers_.

* * *

The story had taken about an hour to tell.

Over three hundred years in an hour.

There was silence.

* * *

_(A/N): Yes. This is my massive, amazingly epic theory that they're all connected in an awesome way. This is my theory for a CANON CROSSOVER._

_Do I need to restate everything? Hopefully not - I wouldn't be able to stand that._

_Hope you got all that, though._

_Also, didn't I say that these would come faster than hell now? If not, then here I did.  
_

_I'd say there's six or seven chapters left, probably.  
_


	24. Twenty-Three

**HAUNTED**

_Twenty-Three_

* * *

The silence lingered for an eternity before it was broken by him.

"So... you're saying that..."

"Yes, Norman," the cat said after its color had changed to blue again. "We all were closer than a family, but were separated by circumstances. If I hadn't shown up on their doorstep, begging for food... none of this would have happened."

"Kitty," the poor woman said, "We can all share the blame. I know Aggie's here, somewhere, and that she would agree."

"A part of her has been following Norman. She does."

Questions ran through his mind, but Norman was content to watch. Everyone was silent.

Then the woman-creature spoke. "I want to pay for what I've done. I need to. I have a way."

"You don't have to," the cat said in a whisper as his color shifted back to green yet again.

"I want to," she insisted. She paused.

"Does it hurt to die, cat?" it finally asked. "You would know better than anyone, seeing as you've done it twice."

The cat floated back to her, although his expression stayed the same. "Only if you want it to," he answered quietly.

The woman glanced at the spiked cieling, and then at the cat again, and then met the gaze of each of the three children in turn before staring down into the lava at her feet.

"You can go," she whispered, "Or you can stay. Please choose."

No one moved. No one made a move to leave.

She looked at the cieling and reached up a skeletal metal hand; the fingers slowly curled in, and cracking sounds emanated from the stalactites far above.

The monster looked at him for the last time.

_"Please. I beg you."_

A large spire fell from above. It dropped ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet.

_"Go."_

The spike landed on her and dug into the floor of the cave. The echo of the breaking stone moved like a great wave through the cavern, crushing the small noise that was the last whispered word.

The caverns began to collapse just as everything began to dissolve into white nothingness. The children started to run just as the first rocks began to fall. Chunks of whiteness broke out over the floor, the lava, the falling stones.

Just as they reached the enterance to the tunnel that led to the first chamber, Norman looked back. The cavern was almost completely overtaken by the nothingness; two pale green figures shimmered slightly at a great distance as they disappeared.

He turned and ran to catch up with his friends.

But Norman knew he would never forget the remnants of a past he had never known.

* * *

_Family._

The dark word echoed through his mind as he crawled through the tunnel back to reality.

* * *

_(A/N): Well, sorry this took so long. But I've got the next chapter ready to be typed, and I've got some art for you guys! :D_

_Just remove the spaces and paste in the link bar:_

_greenwood - wolf . deviantart art / Go - Haunted - Illustration - 335565121_

_PS: Forget it, I'm putting this down as a Misc. Movies crossover now. :P  
_


	25. Twenty-Four

**HAUNTED**

_Twenty-Four_

* * *

Wybie emerged into the light of early morning. Where the tunnel had ended was not easy to identify immediately, but once the other two had emerged, he knew where they were.

"Wow," was all he had to say.

The clearing where Aggie's tree stood was lit by the dim light of sunrise, pale and beautiful in the east. The ground lay covered with an inch and a half of soft, powdery snow. In the dim light, it appeared to be as if the snow was a sea of pink clouds below the sun.

In the base of the tree, a cavity was set where they had crawled out. As he watched, it shrank to the size of a tiny knothole and then disappeared almost completely.

The world was gone. The gateway was forever missing.

Wybie walked up to where his friends were standing and staring at the sunrise. For a moment, a shared smile danced across their faces, but it disappeared just as quickly.

"So what's going to happen now?" Coraline asked, making slight eye contact with Wybie before staring at the sun again.

"I don't know," Norman answered.

Wybie fully answered her. "A new beginning."

There was silence before the girl next to him stifled a giggle.

"Very poetic, Wyborne," Coraline laughed.

"The tree has buds," Norman said quietly.

Wybie looked up. He was right - the tree that probably hadn't bloomed in fifty years had buds all the way down its stems.

"Wow."

He sensed that Coraline wanted him to move away for a little while, possibly because she kept poking his back, so he obeyed her and walked away from the pair for a little while.

Then he realized that there was fresh snow all over the clearing, and decided to be devious.

He started crunching a soft snowball as Norman and Coraline talked. When it was ready, Wybie moved stealthily to point blank and threw it at Coraline's arm.

"Hey!" she shouted. "What was that for?"

"Revenge for all the times you've punched me on the arm."

Norman sniggered. Coraline laughed. A snowball fight broke out.

They didn't leave the clearing until another half hour of happiness had passed.

* * *

_(A/N): CUE THE 1:30 MARK IN "NORMAN'S WALK", LIKE, TEN PARAGRAPHS AGO, OR WHENEVER WYBIE SAYS "A NEW BEGINNING"!_

_Yeah, I love that song. SO AWESOME. :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD_

_So much symbolism in here. Most of it is obvious, a lot of it isn't. Grab for threads. Go crazy._

_ALSO, PARANORMAN FINALLY HAS AN ARCHIVE. HAPPY DAYS!_


	26. Twenty-Five

**HAUNTED**

_Twenty-Five_

* * *

**_POLICE ARCHIVES EXCERPT:_**

_Officers F. Richardson and M. Green, while on patrol, sighted victims of 65829 kidnapping._

_Victims questioned, unable to provide valid information. Witness testimony says that perpetrator is dead._

**_UNRESOLVABLE_**

_**NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED**  
_

* * *

While two policemen were on patrol in one of the county's only squad cars, searching for a sexual predator with no known face or name, they noticed three children walking out of the woods and recognized them as the victims of the kidnapping they were assigned to solve.

They were taken to the station and questioned. They described their kidnapper as an old woman who was searching for something she couldn't have and didn't quite remember what it was. They explained that they had escaped when the woman had died, but offered no further elaboration.

The children were assessed by a psychiatrist and determined to still be too traumatized to provide viable information, and were taken in the squad car back to their respective homes.

The story gained the front page in the local paper due to its curious nature, lack of true resolution, and the meddlings of two writers in the company who happened to be the legal guardians of two of the victims.

The case was marked as 'Unresolvable' and filed away in police archives, with no intention of it ever being revisited again.

Case closed.

* * *

_(A/N): Two chapters in one night? What planet am I living on?_

_Earth, you nincompoops. Twenty-Six is just probably gonna take a bit longer, so I decided to get un-lazy and type this next one up for you._

_Mkay? By the way, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight (if it will exist) and the Epilogue are where we get into the hard-core Normaline, for those of you that have just been waiting for that. Especially the [REDACTED] in the Epilogue. :DDDDDDDDD_


	27. Twenty-Six

**HAUNTED**

_Twenty-Six_

* * *

Coraline searched for Norman as she walked out the doors of their school.

Over the days that had passed since the incident, Norman had become very distant an unfocused, barely even speaking unless spoken to. It began to worry her as he began to slowly seclude himself from nearly everyone.

She spied him walking along one of the streets leading from the school. Norman was about half a block away from the school already, so Coraline ran to catch up.

"Norman!" she called when she was closer.

He looked back to see her, and some unknown message was sent from his gaze, dripping with confusion and guilt. Then he turned back and kept walking.

"Hey, wait up!" she shouted again. Coraline ran after the fleeing boy and didn't stop until she had caught up to him.

"What's your problem, anyway?" she asked him. "You haven't spoken all day, from what I know, or all yesterday, except when Wybie asked you if you knew the answer to the question on his History homework. And even then, it was a one-word response."

"Two words. It was two words," Norman said quietly, more to himself than to her.

"So the mute finally speaks," she chuckled. Then her tone grew serious, and her eyes lowered and darkened. "I've been worried about you. You haven't been the same."

Norman mumbled something to himself that she couldn't understand. She ignored it for the time being.

"I'm not even sure what's wrong - we got out, we're all fine. Given that the Be- _she_ killed herself, and we saw our worst fears..." she shivered. "But -"

"That's exactly what's wrong," Norman said to her, looking her in the eye. She could tell he hadn't been having the best time recently, tipped off by his bloodshot eyes and the sad, dead look on his face.

"What do you mean?" Coraline asked him, her face alight with concern and fear.

Norman looked away from her. "She and Aggie are my great-great-great-grandmother and aunt or something," he started, staring at the ground. His left shoelace was almost untied. Norman looked like he was about to say more, opened his mouth, shut it again, and sighed. "Never mind," he said finally.

"No," Coraline pressured. "What's wrong? Just tell me!"

He sighed again, and his next words almost sounded angry. "They both ended up turning into torturing murderers. I have their same ability to see ghosts, and I probably inherited more abilities that I _don't_ know about," he said. "It's only time before I figure out which one _did_ turn them into those monsters, and from there, there's no going back."

Her eyes widened in shock. Norman was seriously thinking about _that? _"Norman - you're a nice person - you wouldn't -"

Norman suddenly exploded. "Look, I _like_ you, _okay?_" he shouted.

Everything was still for a moment. Then he continued.

"I just..." he trailed off. "If that happens, I don't... want to have to put you through that. I don't want to... hurt you like that."

Coraline didn't know what to say. Then, she finally found her words.

She slowly approached the tired, scared boy and hugged him. "It's okay," she whispered in his ear. "Remember what I said when we were searching for clues in the library?"

"No," Norman whimpered. He seemed a bit more relaxed, though.

"I said," she began, "that 'crazies' should stick together."

"So?"

"I kinda like you, too," she whispered, the words flowing into his ear.

Norman blinked ashamedly, and then looked at the ground. He broke the hug and backed up a step. "This is going... too fast. I mean -"

"I get it," Coraline said. She smiled lightly.

"We should take this at our own pace," he suggested. "So that it doesn't end badly."

"I can agree with that," she replied. "Let's just have fun with it."

"Yeah," Norman replied. "Why not?"

* * *

On Friday, Norman was able to come and stay overnight at her house. Coraline, Wybie, and Norman watched zombie movies on TV for about four and a half hours.

During the second one, Coraline saw Wybie look briefly in her direction, and when he turned back to the movie, he was smiling.

Coraline stuck out her tongue at him, and soon, a competition over who could make the silliest face began while the movie was still running. Norman won.

Wybie would tease Coraline later, after Norman had gone home, that she let him win.

"I still got second place, Wybie," Coraline teased, evading his probes. She punched him on the arm.

* * *

_(A/N): So, it's over two weeks later... wait, why am I saying this? I just gave you some incredibly heart-melting Normaline, so bad that I melted Nicktendo Squad's heart before I published this, and the liquid has been set on fire now, simply due to the fact that this is so heart-melting._

_Yeah, I wish. Okay. But it still took a while to plan what Norman would say, because every time I tried to test something, it ended up being too cheap and soap opera-esque._

_Whatever._

_Anyway, the epilogue will be up soon, by Tuesday at the absolute latest, depending upon whether I keep the original and just modify it a little, or scrap the whole thing and write a ginormous one._

_No, I'm not giving you a choice here. __**Door #3 **__is still Nyan Cat fighting Slenderman to the death. And that's the only option._

_Hope you liked this. We're almost done._

_But based on the fact of how long it took me to write this... yeah, I'm not going to do another chapter._


	28. Epilogue

**HAUNTED**

_Epilogue_

* * *

_five years later_

"I'm going to miss you!" she cried into her friend's shirt, the one that wasn't coming with.

He smiled sadly, and Wybie could tell he didn't know what to say.

Norman's just as shy as when we first met him, Wybie thought. He's just not really a pariah anymore.

He watched as Norman simply gave Coraline a quick kiss and a hug, letting her go once her tears stopped flowing.

Wybie opened the door into the back seat and climbed in. His sister sat down next to him, with Norman sitting on the edge of the seat next to her.

It had taken him two years to stop calling her 'Jonesy' and start calling her 'Sis' instead.

Norman looked at Coraline and promised to e-mail her a few times a week. Wybie heard her make Norman promise, like they used to. He did.

Their parents were already in the car - Mr. and Mrs. Jones were already arguing about which interstate would offer the most direct route to Detroit after all these years.

His sister's old home.

But she was happier here.

Wybie's parents (it had taken him a year and a half to get used to calling them that) finished their argument about the freeways and started one concerning their new jobs and what they were going to end up forgetting here.

Eventually, though, their arguing stopped, and they were ready to go.

Wybie held up a hand in goodbye as he watched Norman stand up, drop Coraline's hand, give her another quick kiss, and shut the car door. She looked back and smiled at him until they reached the end of the street and turned down a new road.

But Wybie kept looking back. This was his neighborhood - there was the house he and Norman had had to break into to help save Coraline (which he did not regret at all, and looking back on it actually considered it 'payback' of sorts for Mrs. Henscher); there was the town hall where they had searched for information about Aggie; there was the tree they and a few other kids had toilet-papered as a prank on the Spanish teacher the year before.

He knew that the truth of the Blithe Hollow incident_s_ would remain hidden with the three of them for the rest of their lives.

Wybie knew he wasn't ever going to forget.

* * *

The friendship those three shared was absolute: forged by fire, cemented by truth, tried by powers unthinkable to the common man.

Theirs was an uncommon friendship; it was a powerful friendship.

A friendship that was haunted, and would remain so forever.

_the end_

* * *

_(A/N): The journey has ended. We have had a fabulous time together, creating new relations and building new friendships. __**Haunted**__ has skyrocketed to the top of my stats list on everything except the number of chapters, of which it is only one chapter behind the record-setter._

_I must thank everyone for the almost 7000 hits this story has received. Thank you for simply reading this now._

_I must thank everyone for the 115 reviews __**Haunted**__ has received by press time. I must thank any reviewers that plan to do so (or will do) in the future._

_I must thank the 26 people who have favorited this story, and the 24 people that put it on alert, and anyone who plans to do so in the future. You know who you are._

_I must thank the staff of the three communities that have added __**Haunted**__ to their archives: __**David Abbot's Favorite Stories Collection**__; __**escape from reality**__; and __**Ranma ,Digimon ,Dragonball Z and Anything else I Think of**__. I must also thank the staff of any communities that plan to add this story to their archives in the future._

_I must thank the four people that were not satisfied with just one Coraline/ParaNorman crossover, who passively but readily demanded for another one. Without these people, __**Haunted**__ would probably not exist at this time: __**bleadgirl123**__, __**CMR Rosa**__, __**mangabreadroll**__, and __**Nicktendo Squad**__._

_My largest, deepest, most honest thank-yous I've ever said in my life go out to __**Nicktendo Squad**__. I cannot thank you enough for the reviews, helpful comments, truthful tips, splendid suggestions, roleplays of randomness, disguised inspiration, and Slenderman. Because you can never have enough Slenderman. XD_

_Final thank-yous go to __**Neil Gaiman**__, __**Henry Selick**__, __**Chris Butler**__, __**Sam Fell**__, and all of the writers, animators, actors, and other positions that have worked at that beautiful organization called __**LAIKA**__._

_Thank you all._

* * *

_PS: Now that **Haunted** is done and finished, I told Nicktendo Squad a while ago that **there is a possibility of a sequel, focusing solely and entirely on Normaline shipping.** In a little while, **I will have a poll up on my profile to decide what my next project will be,** of which this is one of the options.  
_


End file.
